CURT SCHILLING

A POWERFUL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM
So close ... Curt Schilling flirts
with a no-hitter

June 7, 2007 ... Ninth inning, two outs, and as Oakland's Shannon Stewart settled into the batter's box, Jason Varitek flashed his fingers from his catcher's crouch. The scoreboard showed a “0” in the runs column and a “0” in the hits column for the home team Oakland Athletics. Tek’s signal was for a slider. On the mound, Curt Schilling shook his head, something he'd done only five, 10 times tops, on this cloudless afternoon in which the sky was turquoise. He wanted to throw a fastball.

He threw a fastball, the fastest his 40-year-old arm had summoned all afternoon, registering 95 miles per hour on the electric scoreboard in McAfee Coliseum. Stewart swung, and the moment dissolved in regret. A line drive, sharply struck by the right-handed-hitting Stewart, kicked up dirt after streaking past second baseman Alex Cora, who never had a chance, and continued into right field.

The no-hitter was gone. The bid for a perfect game ended with two outs in the fifth, when shortstop Julio Lugo, who handled the first two chances in the ninth, ground balls by Mark Kotsay and Jason Kendall, muffed a routine roller by first baseman Dan Johnson that hopped up on him at the last moment. Until Stewart's single, that error had accounted for Oakland's only base runner. Center fielder Coco Crisp sprinted to the wall to reach overhead and gather Kotsay's bid for extra bases to open the sixth, and third baseman Mike Lowell smothered a tricky hopper by Mark Ellis down the third base line to start the seventh.

But the score was still 1-0, Ortiz's first-inning home run off Joe Blanton accounting for the only run, and now the tying run was on base. There was a game to be won. Varitek took a couple steps toward the mound, then caught a glimpse of Schilling's face. Two more pitches, and it was over, Cora gathering Ellis's pop fly on the foul side of the right-field line to end it.

After the 425th start of Schilling's 19-year big-league career, there would be another entry for a one-hitter, the third of his career. He has never come closer to a no-no. In his 1992 one-hitter, against the Mets when he was pitching for the Phillies, Bobby Bonilla led off the fifth with a home run. In the one-hitter he threw for the Diamondbacks against the Brewers in 2002, Raul Casanova's single came with one out in the third.

In Red Sox history, only two pitchers, Billy Rohr, who gave up a single to Elston Howard in Yankee Stadium in 1967, and Rick Wise, who in 1975 gave up a walk and a two-run home run to George Scott with two outs in the ninth in Milwaukee, had experienced what Schilling did yesterday.

For the Red Sox, the stakes went beyond a no-hitter. They'd lost their last four games, their longest losing streak of the season, and six of seven. A loss yesterday and they were looking at being swept by Oakland and headed for Arizona to face another hot team, the Diamondbacks.

This was not the Schilling who struck out 17 in his one-hitter against the Brewers. That Schilling relied on pure power. Yesterday was a swirling blend of cutters and changeups, sliders and splitters, pitches with which Schilling began to hit his spots with greater frequency, while the speed of his fastball also increased. The first 14 Athletics went down before Lugo's error. A dozen more Athletics would return to the dugout before Stewart's single. Schilling walked no one. Twelve Athletics went out on fly balls. Eleven were retired on grounders. Schilling struck out four.

Ortiz's home run was his second in four games and 11th of the season. He went 6 for 14 (.429) in the four-game series, one in which the Sox managed just three hits Tuesday and four today. Today was only the third time in 14 games the Sox have won in which they've scored three runs or fewer.

Schilling came within Shannon Stewart's two-out single in the bottom of the ninth of becoming the fifth pitcher 40 or older to throw a no-hitter. Cy Young did it in 1908, Warren Spahn in 1961, Nolan Ryan had two (1990 and '91), and Johnson threw a perfect game in 2004.

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