Ahhh, baseball live on TV. What a novel concept!

Let’s hope that title is premature. There are a number of reasons not to like Schilling, but I was ecstatic when the Sox got him in the trade four years ago. For all he’s done for the Sox, how can you not want to see him in a Sox uniform on the mound at Fenway again…next season. Plus, I’m not quite ready to have my Red Sox jersey with the number “38″ on the back go from the “current players” section of the store to the “throwback jerseys” section.

Schilling’s clearly not the same pitcher that pitched with the bloody sock four years ago. Even with a good ankle he just doesn’t have the fastball anymore, and putting together seven innings seems to be tough for him. But last night was the best pitching performance of October for the big Schill this season, all 16/3 innings of it (for you non-math people, that’s 5 1/3). If you could sum up this start in one word, it would without question be “gutsy.” That word gets thrown around a lot, often because pitchers suck and keep getting themselves into trouble and then out of it. But sometimes you can tell that a pitcher just doesn’t have good enough stuff to get batters to miss, and so instead they have to be perfect with everything they’ve got. That was Schilling last night. How good were his 16 outs? Just read this stat from Tom Verducci at SI:

There have been 124 starters in the postseason history of Fenway Park. Only five of them ever won with no more than two runs.

Of course, before Schilling thanks the Academy, he’d better thank his supporting cast (as he call’s them “Papel-jima”). Okajima was spectacular. Seven batters, seven outs. And the first two outs came when he inherited Schilling’s mini-mess in the 6th with one out and two on. This was the same Okajima that was the “hero in the dark” at the beginning of the season. The same one who had to save a one run lead against the MFY back in May against Jeter, and A-Fraud and made it look easy. If baseball gave out game-balls, he’d be first in line for last night. Oh yeah, and there’s that crazy Papbelbon guy getting four outs. One of them thanks to Matt Holliday attending the Jeff Suppan School of Baserunning, but you expected that, right?

Offensively, it was the Mike Lowell story. He probably can’t outrun a turtle, but he still went 1st to 3rd on a single by JD (I guess he earned his name back with that ALCS Game 6 slam), which set up the game-tying sac fly by Tek. Then in the 5th, he hit a 2-out double score Papi from second that was the difference in the game. It’s going to quickly get lost in this game, but what was really impressive about that 2nd run is the entire rally started with 2 outs. Papi walked, and Manny hit a single right under the 3rd basemen’s glove to set up Lowell’s double. That’s a killer to the Rockies.

After 21 games of showing that they know how to win every way possible, the Rockies are now learning that the Red Sox can do the same thing. Win big in game 1, win tight in game 2. As long as the Sox can also win at Coors, it’ll be a fun offseason.