Sports Redux: Curtis ex Machina

Any gripes anyone has with Curt Schilling - his ego, his politics, his whatever - roll 'em up in a ball and store them somewhere for a while. Because the man is clutch. With the Red Sox reeling and poised to be swept out of Oakland, #38 stepped up to the mound and threw a one-hitter. As in, one Oakland hit. As in, if Alex Cora were a foot taller or had been playing a foot to his left, it would have been a no-hitter.

But don't fault Cora. Shannon Stewart hit a perfectly clean single with two outs in the ninth, and Alex flung his body at it as best he could. Sigh. Now Schilling had to avoid the all-too-common trap of a pitcher losing a no-hit bid, then seeing the wheels come off the bus (Dave Stieb Syndrome). Curt took a walk around the mound, cowboyed up, and got Mark Ellis to pop up to preserve the 1-0 win. They don't come easy, do they?

Jason Varitek, meanwhile, must be wondering what he has to do to get one of his aces to throw a no-hitter. Despite catching no-hit gems from Hideo Nomo and Derek Lowe, 'Tek has had ninth-inning signs shaken off by both Schilling, and Pedro a few years ago. "And I get a big 'What if?' for the rest of my life," mused Schill. Well, one remedy would be to throw one against Colorado next week.

One more note about the no-hit bid: apparently David Ortiz didn't realize what was happening until the ninth inning. Let's hope he's a little more focused this weekend, since he'll be fielding and all.

That's right; it's Interleague Time! The Sox are off to Phoenix, where we get a rare look at the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Red Sox have never beaten Arizona; the one series against them was a bad-news sweep at Fenway in 2002 (Curt Schilling was one of the victorious Diamondback pitchers). We've been doing a little research on the D'Backs; two items of interest are that they have three pitchers named Brandon, and Randy Johnson, the oldest Diamondback, is nine years older than the second-oldest Diamondback (old friend/bust Tony Clark).

More pertinently, they've been scorching hot lately (and we're not talking about 105 in the shade). They'd won 11 out of 12, going into last night's late game, and they're doing it without a lot of individual stars. No Diamondback is among the league leaders, except for closer Jose Valverde, second in the NL with 21 saves. Tonight's starter, Doug Davis, has a 2-game winning streak, which seems lame compared to Josh Beckett, still sitting on 8-0.