A truly bizarre game. Schilling was terrible (7 doubles, 1 HR, 4 walks or so - what’s that translate to in OPS against?) - and still made a quality start. Hinske looked lost at the start and found himself after getting his face bashed in. Wily Mo Pena walked about as much as he walked all of last season.
Schilling in his blog called it “probably as weird and as frustrating as any game I’ve thrown in the last four years”, and I think that just about gets it right as far as his pitching went. Worst. Quality start. Ever. (Okay, maybe that’s hyperbole, but it’s not far off, and anyway I was just writing about the Simpsons movie so that’s a turn of phrase that springs straight to mind.)
If the ‘04 Sox were the classy pitch-well hit-great team, the ‘07 Sox are the gut-wrenching “dominant but only when they come from behind"team… I don’t know how many games they’ve won when they’ve been down for most of the innings. So, even prior to Hinske’s great face-plant, I felt quietly confident the Sox would come back. Which is nice - my usual thinking on doubleheaders is that teams tend to split ’em. But all these come-from-behind victories ain’t the best for the heart.