69 Hours To Stew

This afternoon's game with Baltimore was rained out. It will not be made up on the off-day tomorrow, so from the last out Tuesday to the first pitch in Texas on Friday, there will be a gap of sixty-nine hours with no Red Sox baseball. Lots of time to figure out the starting rotation for the next few weeks.

Curt Schilling knew something was wrong with his ankle when he threw a pitch to Travis Lee during the sixth inning on Saturday. Lee looked at two strikes and then hit a two-run double that gave Tampa its 6-5 margin of victory. "The ankle bone was just not ready to take the force I put on it the other day. ... [T]here was a very legitimate possibility that we could break the bone and the season would be done."

What makes very little sense is that after Lee's double, Schilling stayed in the game and threw 21 more pitches, finishing the sixth and pitching the seventh. Also, Schilling says, "I think it was the hardest pitch I had thrown all year, and I was really trying to reach back and throw the ball." Does that mean that he'd been holding back, afraid to really test the ankle?

Red Sox medical director Thomas Gill said Wells "will benefit from a period of rest and rehabilitation. Currently, there is no exact time frame for his return [Francona was quoted as saying 4-6 weeks]. We expect him to be able to maintain his fitness activities and baseball training throughout the period of his rehab." Fitness activities?

Fun With Numbers: Last night's crowd of 35,670 was the largest for a regular season game at Fenway Park since September 28, 1990. ... The last time the Red Sox allowed 20 hits was July 24, 2003, when the Devil Rays had 21. ... Keith Foulke has allowed 20 base runners in nine appearances, covering 10 innings. His ERA ballooned to 7.20.

Heh:

Schilling: When you're playing a team with a manager who somehow forgot how the game is played, there's problems. ... Lou's trying to make his team be a bunch of tough guys, and the telling sign is when the players on that team are saying, 'This is why we lose a hundred games a year, because this idiot makes us do stuff like this.' They were saying this on the field.

Piniella: I think he should just concern himself with pitching and not worry about what other managers do or don't do. ... I know exactly how the game should be played, and why. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed in his comments, very disappointed in his comments. ... Go talk to the players. I don't think they'd say that. I know you wouldn't get one to say that.

No shit, Lou. None of your players are going on the record calling you an idiot.