Farewell to thoughts of goodbye

Last night certainly silenced any debate, if there was one, about whether keeping him on this pitching staff is good business.

Pitching is scarce - just take a gander at the free agent list, where you'll read the names of Kyle Lohse and Carlos Silva - and if you've got a soon-to-be 41-year-old pitcher who affects your other starters and can pitch like he has in October, is there any choice but to offer him another year and let him finish his career in Boston?

No matter how annoyed the Red Sox might have been that Schilling didn't take conditioning seriously at the beginning of the season and that it might have affected his win total, you can't argue with the fact that he's made the transition from power pitcher to finesse pitcher seamlessly.

Next season, the Sox are going to have a young staff. Add Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz to the rotation and it would be wise to have a veteran starter who can act as a second pitching coach and teach these guys how to win.

There's no doubt Schilling, who went 5 1/3 innings last night and picked up the 2-1 victory in Game 2 of the World Series, has come up big in the postseason. He had one bad start, but the rest have been quality pressure outings that would be hard to replicate. He's even had an impact on Daisuke Matsuzaka with a between-starts chat in which he emphasized to the young Japanese pitcher the importance of fastball command.

Who knows whether pitching coach John Farrell will depart the Sox and become the Pittsburgh Pirates' manager? If so, the Red Sox will need a new pitching coach, so it wouldn't hurt to have Schilling's voice available for a young staff.

As long as a team knows Schilling would not be a No. 1 or No. 2 starter, he should find employment next year. He can certainly be to the Red Sox what Roger Clemens has been to the Houston Astros and New York Yankees the past three years - a legendary pitcher who can be effective on the mound and as a teacher.

"He's tremendous behind the scenes in the way he can eliminate the gray area you have sometimes," said Jason Varitek. "It does happen a lot behind the scenes, and the fact that it is behind the scenes is very impressive."

Given his heroic '04 season and his '07 postseason performance - which could easily lead to his third championship ring - Schilling probably doesn't want to pick up his family and move again. He has been the good soldier the second half of the season and said all the right things after enduring times when he said many of the wrong things.

He's made it clear that he wants to stay in Boston. He's been with Terry Francona for many years, dating to Philadelphia. They know each other well. Francona knew Schilling's right shoulder was tightening in the sixth inning last night. Francona thought the cause was the Red Sox' long at-bat, which kept Schilling idle in the cool fall air.

Francona knew enough to take Schilling out with one out in the sixth and not risk either Schilling hurting the team by making a bad pitch in a one-run game, or getting hurt himself.

Although he had just given up a single and a walk, Schilling had thrown only 82 pitches. At the time, it almost smacked of Lou Piniella's poor decision to take Carlos Zambrano out of a National League Division Series game after 85 pitches, a decision that came back to haunt the Cubs. In this case, however, the manager knew the pitcher so well, he knew when it was time.

That's something Schilling would like to continue.

When he left the game to a rousing standing ovation, it almost appeared Schilling knew this might have been his last appearance at Fenway. But it doesn't have to be.

Schilling is starting to grow tired of questions about whether that was his last start. He certainly reacted to the crowd as if it was.

"I don't have any, I really don't," said Schilling on whether he had any thoughts or emotions concerning possibly making his last start. "I guarantee everybody is sick of hearing it as I am. It seems like the last four or five games everybody is asking this could be, this could be.

"Whatever happens is going to happen. You know, I have faith in God that it's going to work out the way it's supposed to work out. [The Red Sox] know what I want and that I want to come back. and we'll deal with that at the appropriate time.

"We're trying to win a World Series, so it makes it very, very easy to not even think about it."

.Asked what he liked most about Schilling, Francona said, "His will to make sure the score ends up in our favor. Because I've known him for a long time, I expect unfair things of him. That probably won't stop. Whatever the situation, you know he's going to be prepared for it."

Common sense says Francona will depend on him next season, too.