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I just finished watching a ridiculous Red Sox/Devil Rays game. The Red Sox eventually won it 10-9 in 10 innings but not after yet another shaky performance by the all mighty Curt Schilling. Now let’s first get a couple things straight. I think Curt Schilling is an incredible pitcher and undoubtedly a staff ace. We all know about the bloody sock and his post season heroics of last year, not to mention the other 16 years of his career during which he’s ranged from a very good pitcher to a Cy Young candidate (but not a winner).

The one problem that I have with Schilling though, is that he thinks he’s better than he is. When he was on the Diamondbacks he thought that he and Randy Johnson were equivalent staff aces. Except Randy Johnson won 4 Cy Youngs in a row on the Diamondbacks and he had better numbers than Schilling across the board every season. Last year, he thought that he was the staff ace of the Red Sox ahead of Pedro Martinez. Last year’s numbers for the two of them might justify this, but evidenced by Pedro’s performance this year for the Mets, last year was an off year for Pedro. Schilling also is not the owner of two of the most dominating seasons by a pitcher in the history of the game (the ‘99 and ‘00 versions of Pedro). Then of course in the postseason last year, Schilling praised himself and his performances more times than Jose Canseco has injected himself with steroids in his lifetime.

Fast forward to this year. Foulke is having mechanics problems all year long and eventually goes on the DL to have surgery. Lord Schilling is admittedly not even ready to start games and yet he thinks that he should ride in and save the struggling first place Red Sox by becoming their closer. Two losses and a blown save later, Schilling is pitching ok, but he’s no Brad Lidge, and he’s also no savior. After watching him nearly give up a home run in the 9th inning today to blow yet another one (saved by Johnny Damon’s leaping catch), I realized that not only is Curt Schilling not much more useful than Curt Leskanic, but he is also naturally not even suited to be a closer because of the type of pitcher he is.

To give you an idea of what I mean, consider this list of numbers: 27, 37, 29, 17, 23. Any guesses to what those numbers are? They’re the total number of home runs that Curt Schilling has given up in each of the last 5 years. The 37 that he gave up in 2001 was the most by any pitcher in the league that year, and his 286 that he had given up in his career before the start of this season put him 8th among all active Major League pitchers. Overall, over his career he has averaged giving up nearly 1 home run every 9 innings pitched. Now, clearly he has been able to keep his ERA down because he has impeccable control, strikes out a lot of guys, and rarely walks batters. All three of those attributes are exactly what you want for a pitcher in a closer role. What you don’t want is somebody that gives up a lot of home runs. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t really want to rely on somebody to close out games if he’s going to give up a home run every 7 to 9 times that you put him out there.

Curt Schilling is a starter, not a closer. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong in the next month or two, but I think the sooner the Red Sox get a healthy Curt Schilling back into the starting rotation, the better off they’ll be.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.