BOSTON — The wind helped out Boston starter Curt Schilling in the first inning of the second game.

And then it worked against him in the next two innings.

The strong wind, blowing straight in from right field, saved Schilling a grand slam. Sean Casey crushed a high drive to right field with two outs. Eric Hinske drifted back and turned a couple of different directions, but the wind knocked down the drive, and Hinske made the catch on the warning track, his body posture that of a man sitting in a chair as the ball fell into his glove.

The Red Sox’ Coco Crisp, right, comes home on a single by Kevin Youkilis in last night’s game.

The providence journal / Kris Craig Kris Craig

On most nights, the ball Casey hit would have sailed at least into the visitors’ bullpen, if not over it.

But in the second, rookie catcher Mike Rabelo hit a high fly to right. Hinske took a step back and then began racing in because the wind kept pushing the ball back to the infield. Hinske made a dive for the ball, but was unable to hold it as Rabelo made it to second with a gift double.

That wind-aided hit cost Schilling a 1-2-3 inning, resulting in 11 extra pitches in the inning, pushing his two-inning total to an alarming 55.

The wind did Schilling and the Red Sox no favors in the third, either. Magglio Ordonez led off with a bloop, wind-pushed double in shallow right near the line, and he scored on Carlos Guillen’s double in the right-field corner past the beleaguered Hinske, tying the game at 1-1.

Coco gets the calls

Coco Crisp owed plate umpire Jerry Meals a thank-you note, and then a pat on the back to second-base umpire Rob Drake for making a correct call during the first inning of yesterday’s first game.

Crisp was not happy with Meals on a 3-and-1 pitch from Zach Miner. Meals called the pitch a strike, though in replays the pitch looked down and away. Crisp had started toward first base, thinking he had walked, but was called back.

He ultimately lined a single to left, which was better for his batting average, certainly, than the walk.

Then, with the Tigers playing a shift on David Ortiz, Crisp was able to go down and slide under an attempted tag by swung-over shortstop Guillen, who had fielded Ortiz’s grounder and was trying to turn it into an inning-ending double play.

Crisp ended up on the infield grass as the result of his slide, but he was called safe by Drake.

Crisp got up and went to second. And while the Tigers, who got the out on Ortiz at first, were beginning to argue with Drake, Crisp alertly raced over to third base, which was unoccupied because third baseman Brandon Inge had been playing Ortiz in the normal shortstop position, and catcher Pudge Rodriguez did not run down to cover the bag.

In the case of Crisp being called safe, there is no specific baseline for a runner until a play is being made on that runner. And at that point, the runner is given three feet from either side of the bag, generally regarded as an arm’s length. Crisp didn’t so much go out of that “baseline” description, but rather underneath the tag, so he was called safe.

Making it hurt the Tigers even more was the fact Manny Ramirez cashed in the extra out by lining an RBI single to center, giving the Sox a quick 1-0 lead.

Tavarez fools two Tigers

Red Sox right-hander Julian Tavarez pulled the Luis Tiant spin-a-rama motion out of mothballs yesterday, and it worked to perfection.

With runners at first and second and one out in the fifth, Tavarez had an 0-and-2 count on Curtis Granderson. From the stretch, as Tavarez began his motion, he twirled his body back, so that he was facing Craig Monroe, the runner at second.

Monroe, thinking Tavarez was going to try to pick him off, took a step or two back toward the bag.

But Tavarez then spun back toward the plate and threw a breaking ball that, combined with the trickiness of the motion and off-speed nature of the pitch, totally fooled Granderson, who couldn’t check his swing in time and was called out on strikes.

Lowell shot ruled a single

Mike Lowell and the Red Sox thought he had a ground-rule double in the sixth inning of the opener when he drilled a ball just inside the third-base line.

Instead, he was forced to settle for a ground-rule single.

A fan reached over the low wall where it juts out toward center field. The ball clanged off his glove, and the third-base umpire, Gary Darling, clutched his hands over his head, calling the ball dead, because of fan interference.

The Sox expected Manny Ramirez, running at first base, to be granted third base and Lowell second with one out and Boston clinging to a 2-1 lead. Or, at the very least, they thought Ramirez would be granted third base, with Lowell, a slow runner, kept at first.

But the umpires have discretion on such a play. And Drake, the plate umpire, ruled the ball would have kicked back into the field of play had it not been interfered with, which would have forced Ramirez to stop at second.

Drake noted, said Boston manager Terry Francona, that Ramirez had stopped running at second, to which Francona countered he had stopped running because of the dead-ball signal. Drake won the argument, despite a spirited rebuttal from Francona.

Ramirez and Lowell each eventually moved up 90 feet on a two-out wild pitch, but they didn’t score. Had at least Ramirez been given an extra base, the Sox would have had an extra run, though they wound up not needing it in a 2-1 win.

Pena charge rattles Crisp

Wily Mo Pena is a rock-solid 6-foot-3, 245 pounds. Crisp is generously listed at 6-foot, 180 pounds.

Little wonder that, hearing the thundering hoof beats of Pena charging over from left field, Crisp’s concentration was interrupted as he tried to track down Curtis Granderson’s first-pitch liner in left-center in the night game.

Crisp got to the ball, but his backhanded attempt at catching it failed because Pena distracted him, the ball clanging off his glove and falling to the ground. Granderson wound up with a double.

Crisp at least avoided a collision with Pena, a collision Crisp would have “lost.” Pena, starting in left field in place of Ramirez, should have peeled off sooner.

skrasner@projo.com