Ace touches on foreign policy, health care

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- He spared Terry Francona the trouble of naming an Opening Day starter by matter of factly mentioning he's planning to pitch that day.

For a guy with no immediate political aspirations, he also did a perfectly splendid impression of an ambassador to Japan, trying out a few phrases of an unfamiliar tongue on new teammates Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, then charming the Japanese media by bravely repeating himself with TV cameras rolling.

And not least in importance, Curt Schilling did not back away from raising the bar, not only for himself but for Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, Tim Wakefield, and Jonathan Papelbon, when he said, "We have a chance to have the best rotation in baseball."

To reach that level, the Sox would have to make a significant leap from last season, when the starters went 61-56 with a 5.00 ERA, the 11th highest in the league and the team's second highest in the last 50 years, exceeded only by the club that had a 5.01 ERA in 1996, Roger Clemens's last season with the Red Sox.

Last season, of course, even though Schilling showed up the skeptics by pitching 204 innings and making 31 starts in a dramatic rebound from an injury-plagued 2005 season (8-8, 5.69 ERA), the rotation was a shambles. General manager Theo Epstein traded Bronson Arroyo in March, never dreaming the club would lose David Wells on the cusp of the season, that Matt Clement would be finished by June 14, that Wakefield would go down for seven weeks in July, and that Beckett would be erratic.

The Sox used 14 starting pitchers in 2006, their most in a season in 40 years, and started the biggest series of the season with Jason Johnson, who was 1-11 before taking the mound against the Yankees in what would become a Boston Massacre redux.

That's why Schilling, who made a noticeable effort to lead by example in the team's morning conditioning drills, the 40-year-old righthander a half-step ahead of everyone else, added a qualifier to his assessment.

"We need to be healthy," he said. "That's every club. It's just a matter of getting out of Florida with the same five guys you started with. I think we have almost a six-man rotation, depending on how Jonny [Lester] comes along."

Schilling is feeling so spry these days, he not only plans to pitch two more seasons, he left open the possibility he might be back beyond 2008. "I feel good," he said. "I'll be ready to go Opening Day. Absolutely, this is a World Series-caliber club and we need to be ready right out of the chute."

Schilling has not yet come to terms on a contract extension for '08, something he wants done before the start of the regular season.

"We'll see," he said. "We're talking right now and we'll continue talking. We'll talk until such time we stop talking. I'll either be signed or I won't. It's that simple."

Schilling last season passed two significant milestones, 200 wins and 3,000 strikeouts. He is one of only 14 pitchers to have done so, though with 207 wins, he's 44 behind Bob Gibson, the Hall of Famer with the fewest wins (251) of any pitcher in the 3,000-K club.

Those numbers have Schilling in any conversation about Cooperstown, but it won't be initiated by him, he said.

"It's not something I think about," he said. "My hand to God, it's not something that motivates me or drives me, because it's obviously 100 percent out of my control.

"When you see the guys that aren't in there that belong in there, the Bert Blylevens, the Jim Rices, it makes it very easy not to worry about it. Hopefully, I'm going to stay healthy and pitch the next two seasons and win another World Series or two, win 25 games each year and walk away healthy, if that's what we decide."

Schilling appeared on his way to a possible 20-win season last year, posting a 10-3 record with a 3.68 ERA by the All-Star break. He was nigh unbeatable at home, winning his first eight decisions at Fenway and winding up the season with a 9-1 record and 3.06 ERA on Yawkey Way. But he won just five games after the break, the ERA climbing by nearly a full point (4.58), and he was hindered by a strained side muscle in September.

"I just didn't pitch well," he said of his second-half performance. I had a run of five or six or seven starts where I matched up against [Johan] Santana and a bunch of No. 1s and pitched well and didn't get a decision. In a perfect year, you win all those games, and then you have a stinker or two where you get by, especially with this lineup.

"I had some games in the second half, we never even had a chance to win. That was probably the frustrating part, sitting on 12 or 13 or 14 wins and looking at winning 22 or 23 or 24 games, and then I fell out of a tree and did not pitch statistically well until the end of the season.

"Nothing physical, I just didn't execute consistently."

It's evident he has different expectations this season, not only for himself but for Matsuzaka, whom he frequently engaged in conversation while they went through drills in the same group yesterday.

"I don't think it's going to be anywhere near the adjustment people off the field think it is," Schilling said of Matsuzaka. "I think the kid is phenomenally talented. I think he's an ace in the making, stuff-wise. Makeup wise, he's polished, he's very composed. He's a mature 26-year-old kid.

"From what I've seen video-wise, he's a phenomenally talented kid. Obviously he's pitching in the toughest division in baseball, in the world, but I think he'll be able to step up and do some pretty special things."

Gordon Edes can be reached at edes@globe.com.