08:13 AM EDT on Monday, September 27, 2004

Journal photo / Bob Breidenbach Curt Schilling allowed just one hit in seven innings against the Yankees yesterday, which bodes well for the playoffs.

BOSTON -- There really wasn't much for the Yankees to say yesterday afternoon after being limited to just one hit through seven innings by Curt Schilling.

Although paraphrasing Pedro might have been appropriate.

"We just tip our caps and call him our daddy," the Yanks could have said. "We can't find a way to beat him at this point. We wish he would disappear and never come back. We'd like to face any other pitcher right now."

That's a pretty close approximation of what Martinez said Friday night about the Yankees after being bombed by the boys from the Bronx for the second time in six days.

Frustrated at being unable to throw the ball past them, Martinez instead threw in the proverbial towel.

"I don't now, nor have I ever, judged somebody on a 30-second sound bite," said Schilling, sticking up for his teammate

after sticking it to the Yanks.

"I know how much pride and competitiveness he has," Schilling said of Martinez. "I know, the last time I pitched against the Yankees, how unbelievably frustrated I was.

"I don't think a lot of you understand that, while this is a post-game press conference, my adrenalin is still going. I'm still amped up from the game. You say things in here sometimes that are all raw emotion.

"The next day, you get a chance to sit back and you go: 'That's not the way I meant it.' That happens. I don't doubt for a second that, when he takes the ball in the postseason, he's going to be the Pedro I hope he is."

Who will get the ball for the first game of the postseason has been a hot topic in Red Sox Nation as the playoffs loom ever closer, but it's not something Boston manager Terry Francona has been eager to talk about.

Nor did he want to get into a discussion of why Schilling was so much more effective yesterday than Martinez had been in Friday's 6-4 loss, in which he twice surrendered one-run leads to the Yanks. Or, for that matter, in last Sunday's 11-1 rout at Yankee Stadium.

"I don't compare," Francona said. "I mean, every game is different. It doesn't matter. Those are two completely different games. I can't do that. I wouldn't do that."

Fact is, there truly is no comparison between Martinez's recent struggles against New York -- which, come to think of it, actually go back quite a way: the Red Sox are 11-19 in Pedro's last 30 starts against the Yanks -- and the way Schilling dominated the Yankees yesterday.

With the exception of the fourth inning, when he inexplicably encountered control problems, Schilling was in virtually complete control in every way.

He retired the first 10 batters before walking the next three on 12 pitches.

"I'd love to sit here and tell you that (the umpire) was horrible behind the plate and was squeezing me," Schilling said. "I threw 12 straight balls and I only thought one was a strike. Last time I did that, it was the umpire's fault. This time, it wasn't."

Oddly enough, the last time it happened, Schilling said: "was against Kevin Brown and the Dodgers, I think in '96 or '97."

Brown, making his first start since breaking his left hand punching a wall in the clubhouse at Yankee Stadium Sept. 3, had no better success trying to punch out the Sox.

He didn't make it through the first inning, giving up four runs before he could get three outs. After Boston added three more in the second against Esteban Loaiza, there was no doubt Schilling was on his way to his 21st win.

"Our offense took a lot of suspense out of this game early," said Schilling, who now has won his last eight decisions -- and it would have been nine, had Keith Foulke not blown the lead in the ninth inning Tuesday night against the Orioles.

The only suspense that remained was whether Schilling, who hasn't lost since Aug. 9 against, oddly, the Devil Rays, would pitch the first no-hitter of his career.

That went by the boards when, after Schilling had loaded the bases on walks, Jorge Posada's two-out comebacker darted under his glove, plating two runs.

"I should have caught that ball," Schilling said. "I just didn't react to it well. But I dug that hole myself. That inning never should have gotten to that point.

"With that offense, and that team, you don't ever want them to think that they're in the game when your offense puts them away that early. There's just no excuse for a situation like that to come up."

Despite yesterday's win, which enabled Boston to take two out of three from New York in their weekend series, the Sox still trail the Yankees by three games in the loss column with seven left to play.

"It's out of our hands," Schilling said when asked about the chances of slipping past New York and finishing atop the A.L. East, instead of in the runner-up spot for the seventh straight season.

"We had our chances. Every chance we had, they beat us back."

There's a good chance the Sox and Yanks will meet again, as they did last year, in the ALCS, although Minnesota looms a formidable challenge in the opening round, and neither New York nor Boston can take a victory over whichever team wins the A.L. West for granted.

But it is so very obvious now that Boston's best chance for victory in Game One of the best-of-five Division Series is with Schilling on the mound. And, if the Sox do get to face the Yankees again, there is no doubt that he, rather than Pedro, is the man to be relied upon.

He now is 2-0 against New York this decision, with a win in mid-April in Fenway, and a no-decision, also in Boston, in late July when the Yankees got to him for 10 hits and 7 runs in 5 1/3 innings.

How, Schilling was asked, would you feel about getting the ball in Game One of the playoffs?

"It's an honor," he said. "But, once you get out there, it's really irrelevant. A five-game series is kind of like five, one-game seasons. There's intensity with every out, with every pitch."

It is exactly that sort of intensity that Schilling brings to the mound every game.

"He uses anything to get excited for a game," Francona said. "He'd use 'bobble-head day' to his advantage. Playing the New York Yankees, it's pretty easy.

"And the bigger the stage, the more he wants to be out there. He doesn't shy away from that. And, I think, the better he pitches. Which is good news for us."

The bad news is that Pedro sometimes has complained about having to pitch in cold weather.

"Weather," said Schilling, "is what you make it. Those kinds of things should be zero factors in the game as far as how you perform.

"When the month starts with 'O' on the calendar, people play different. Average players can become great players. Great players can become very average. It's a matter of heart, mind, and talent -- putting all three together at the most important time of the season."

Schilling has the heart, the mind and the talent.

Clearly, he has it all together.

Which is why he ought to have the ball when the playoffs open.

He is, after all, the Yankees' "daddy."