World Series Game 2

Good old Johnny Pesky was a part of the pre-game show on the Fox telecast. He also threw out the first pitch with his former teammates Bobby Doerr and Dom DiMaggio.

Pesky’s story, of course, is well known by Red Sox fans. But in the late 1950s, he managed the Lancaster Red Roses, who were a farm team for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the time. It just so happened that my grandfather was a front-office type with the team and a local restaurateur, who catered to the town’s politicians, media types and athletes.

Essentially, my grandfather was the Toots Shor of Lancaster, Pa.

Anyway, because of the family connection, I got to know Pesky pretty well. In fact, the first time I met him was at the Cross Keys hotel in Baltimore where the Red Sox were staying during an important September series against the Orioles. Little did I know that Pesky’s Sox – he was the first-base coach – were in the middle of a colossal collapse that would culminate with Bucky Dent knocking one into the screen above the Green Monster in a special playoff game. All I knew was that I got to hang out in the hotel lobby with Don Zimmer, sat in a hotel room with a real big leaguer, got to go in the clubhouse before the game where I got a ball signed by the whole team, and then got kick-ass seats behind home plate for the big game. I remember Jim Rice blasting a home run that seemed to carry out of Memorial Stadium and little-used Larry Harlow hitting two homers to add to the Sox’s September woes.

Throughout my teens I wrote letters to old Johnny and he always wrote back and sent me autographs of the players. Yes, I still have them all.

One summer he called me at home from the clubhouse in Pawtucket, where he was managing, to answer questions for a story I was writing.

This past June, Pesky and I had a chance to catch up in the clubhouse before a game against the Phillies. Needless to say, that conversation is one of the highlights in all of my time covering Major League Baseball. I heard enough stories during that short time with Pesky in the Red Sox clubhouse to fill a couple of chapters of a book. It was a great, classic moment that I quickly ran upstairs to the press box to tell all of the other scribes, but won’t relate in here for obvious reasons.

Lets just say that neither Pesky nor I were too bashful about passing along information.

If the Red Sox win the World Series, I hope Pesky is on the bench so that he can take part in the celebration on the field. He deserves that much.

Game stuff
Joe Buck talked about how starter Matt Morris has had a very inconsistent season and a very shaky playoffs. In my opinion, Buck is being kind. Morris just plain stunk this season. A former 22-game winner, who seemed poised to become a perennial Cy Young Award candidate, Morris has battled nagging injuries and bad outings during the last two seasons. After winning 39 games through 2001 and 2002, Morris won just 26 games during the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Set to be a free agent at the end of the World Series, Morris really could pushed his financial worth to the level it was in 2001 with a strong postseason. Instead, he is 0-1 in three starts, and has a 5.29 ERA in 17 innings. Worse, opponents are hitting .270 against him, which about how well the opposition hit him during the regular season. It would be hard for a general manager to justify paying him more than the $12.5 million he’s making this season when more consistent pitchers will also be available in the free-agent market.

Once an automatic win for the Cards, Morris’ starts are similar to Derek Lowe’s for Boston.

Top of 1
Curt Schilling and his balky ankle don’t get into much trouble in a drizzly, chilly opening frame. Albert Pujols laces a two-out double in the left-center gap, but Scott Rolen gets robbed by third baseman Bill Mueller to end the inning.

It could be the first really good swing Rolen has had since the big homer off Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the NLCS.

Edgar Renteria started the game with a 12-pitch at-bat before grounding out to short.

Bottom of 1
Morris got the first two hitters to quickly ground out before suddenly losing all knowledge of the strike zone. He issued back-to-back walks to Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz before catcher Jason Varitek blasted a long triple to the triangle in center.

Just like that and it’s 2-0. Oh, those bases on balls.

Morris walked Kevin Millar but rediscovers his magic ground-out pitch to end the inning.

Top of 2
Knowing that the TV cameras will zoom in his cadaver-sutured right ankle, Schilling wrote “K ALS” with silver marker near the injury. That, folks, is Curt Schilling in a nutshell. He knows where the cameras are at all times.

Schilling gets a lot of help when Mueller makes another nice play by turning a sure RBI double for Mike Matheny into an inning-ending, unassisted double play.

Good pitching is fifty percent good fielding.

Bottom of 2
Morris gives up a leadoff single to Mueller and appears to shake off Matheny on two straight pitches before settling on one he likes and coaxing a double-play grounder out of the Game 1 hero Mark Bellhorn. When he strikes out Johnny Damon, Morris looks like his old self.

Top of 3
Schilling retires the side in order on just nine pitches. Believe it or not, it looked easier than that.

Bottom of 3
It didn’t take nine pitches, but Morris tore through the Sox hitters to retire the side with just 14 pitches. Interestingly, Morris had stuck with his fastball and changeup instead of his bread-and-butter curve. Either way, he ahs retired six in a row.

Top of 4
Pujols leads off with another double and smartly moves up to third when Trot Nixon tumbled to catch a flare by Rolen. If Pujols had not moved up, he would not have been able to score when Mueller booted a slow roller by Sanders.

The defense giveth and it taketh away.

Schilling is starting to find his groove. Aside from Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds had some sloppy looking swings. It appears as if Schilling’s two-seamer has a lot of bite.

Bottom of 4
Just as quickly as Morris found his good form, he lost it. A curveball got away from the right-hander and plunked Kevin Millar. Then, with two outs, Morris gave up back-to-back doubles to Millar and that wily Bellhorn.

There are two more RBIs for Bellhorn and a 4-1 lead for the Sox. So far, the unsung second baseman is the MVP of the series.

Top of 5
Schilling gives up a first-pitch single to Matheny, but quickly strikes out former teammate Marlon Anderson before coaxing a 6-4-3 double play from Renteria.

Yeah, Schilling is starting to look tough to solve. Since he has only thrown 73 pitches (48 strikes), the big righty will probably be out there for a while.

Bottom of 5
The unraveling of Morris continued with a leadoff walk to Orlando Cabrera. Though he almost plunked Ramirez before retiring him on a fly, Morris gets the hook in favor of Cal Eldred. But while Eldred is making his way in from the bullpen, the folks at Fox are too busy talking to Tom Hanks and Jimmy Fallon atop the Monster.

Hanks is cool and is an admitted Oakland A’s and American League fan, but Fallon could be doing more with the tiniest bit of talent than any man in America. For that he deserves kudos, but we don’t want to watch him shill a shitty movie while Cal Eldred is on his way in… come on. Think of how hard Eldred worked to get to the World Series only to have it ruined because a talentless actor is doing a faux Southie accent.

When Eldred finally gets the stage, Ortiz slams a long and loud foul past Pesky’s Pole for a scary strike before getting the big fella to fly out. Then he drills Varitek on his elbow armor to put two on with two outs.

However, Eldred gets out of the jam with a nasty hook to catch Millar looking on a 3-2 count.

Come to think of it, as far as stars go Tom Hanks could be as big as they get. Who cares about Cal Eldred?

Top of 6
Schilling gets Walker to whiff on a splitter that was neatly set up by a four-seam fastball. He moves that four-seamer in and out to Pujols, getting him to fly weakly to right. Then with two strikes, Rolen reaches on another error by Mueller though Schilling had his old teammate on his heels using a mix of two and four-seamers.

Nevertheless, Mueller tied a World Series record with three errors in one game.

When Rolen reaches, lefty Alan Embree starts warming up in the ‘pen. The reliever looks on as Bellhorn boots one to give the Sox their fourth error of the game, but Schilling pitches around it by getting Sanders to ground out to Mueller.

That’s eight errors in 15 innings for the Red Sox. Surprisingly Mueller, who I remember as a pretty good fielder and someone I talked to about various types of infielders gloves when he was with the Giants, is struggling out there.

Bottom of 6
Fox showed Terry Francona huddling with Schilling when the inning ended, which allowed Buck and Tim McCarver to speculate whether or not big pitcher was finished for the night. Embree, the Civil War officer look-alike, is ready to go in the ‘pen.

Chatty Ray King looks loose and ready to go, but he is most likely going to face Ortiz. Perhaps La Russa should have used him earlier because Eldred gave up a pair of two-out singles to plate two more runs. After Ramirez collected a wind-blown single, King finally got to face Ortiz.

King gets a strikeout on Ortiz, but the Cards are in a hole because they can’t get that elusive third out. All six of the Red Sox’s runs have come with two outs. Because of this, it would make sense to pull Schilling and let the bullpen take care of the five-run lead.

Top of 7
Stonewall Embree enters for Schilling and so does Pokey Reese to shore up the Sox defense. But the fielders could have taken a seat on the grass after Embree whiffed the side in order to send the game into Donna Summer’s rendering of “God Bless America.”

Probably the most interesting part of the game so far was an interview with a 79-year old fan sitting in the bleachers named Annie. Old Annie really knew her stuff and was scoring the game when Chris Myers started talking to her.

Bottom of 7
La Russa brings in the probable Game 4 starter Jason Marquis to give him some work and calm his World Series nerves. Buck says he likes the move, but forgets to mention that Marquis pinch ran and scored a run in Game 1.

Still, it doesn’t stop Varitek to bash another one to the triangle that Edmonds had to make a tough over-the-shoulder catch to save extra bases. After two walks, Marquis’ maiden is officially broken with a scoreless inning.

Top of 8
It’s do-or-die time for the Cardinals. If they are going to make a dent into the lead it better happen now or it’s going to be a 2-0 series.

With that in mind, Renteria draws a leadoff walk off reliever Mike Timlin and Pujols gets his third hit with a one-out single. But Rolen lifts a sacrifice fly for the second out to make it 6-2 as Timlin gives way to Keith Foulke.

That’s bad news for the Cards. Foulke comes in and quickly strikes out Edmonds to end the minor threat.

Bottom of 8
Al Reyes sits down the Sox in order – Damon, Cabrera and Ramirez. Buck points out that Reyes was the pitcher who plunked former Sox’s star Nomar Garciaparra on the wrist that started a string of injury-filled seasons for the star-crossed shortstop.

It was also noted that Reyes was left off the roster for the first two rounds of the playoffs and was only added when Steve Kline was deemed too hurt to pitch in the series. Needless to say, Kline was pretty pissed off.

Top of 9
The cardinals appear to be in some real trouble. Down 2-0, they now must go to St. Louis and beat Pedro Martinez to avoid an insurmountable 3-0 deficit. That’s going to be tougher than normal because these Sox can feel it. They know they are just two more victories away from finally doing it.

Yessir folks, maybe the world really is coming to an end.

Still, no one has mentioned that the Red Sox had a 2-0 advantage over the Mets in the 1986 World Series.

We all remember how that one ended, don’t we?

WP: Schilling
LP: Morris
HR: none