Said Curt Schilling after last night’s solid outing against the A’s: “I feel as good as I can feel. I’m very confident I can do what I need to do to win ballgames.”

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

BOSTON — The transformation of Curt Schilling as a pitcher continued last night at Fenway Park.

And Schilling, in the process of turning himself into more of a finesse pitcher than the power pitcher he used to be, showed once again that he knows how to get outs despite a dip in velocity, no small accomplishment with a postseason start around the corner for him.

The right-hander fanned six and allowed only one run — a homer by rookie Daric Barton in the first — in an efficient six-inning stint that earned him a 7-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics last night at Fenway Park.

The win, combined with a Yankees loss last night, sliced Boston’s magic number to three for clinching the American League East title.

Schilling had help from his offense, with Jacoby Ellsbury, a late lineup addition for Coco Crisp (illness) contributing a pair of RBI before David Ortiz’s two-run eighth-inning homer to right gave Boston a six-run cushion. The bullpen quartet of Manny Delcarmen, Eric Gagne, Jonathan Papelbon and Bryan Corey combined to preserve Schilling’s ninth win of the year.

But it was Schilling who has begun to look like the Sox’ number-two pitcher in the postseason now that he seems to be able to master his change in style.

“It’s a challenge. It’s very, very different. I want to continue to improve with the new stuff, the new game plan the new approach and get better at it,” said Schilling. “I feel as good as I can feel. I’m very confident I can do what I need to do to win ballgames.

“I’ve changed physically as a pitcher, and I had to accept that mentally as a pitcher. I think I’ve done well with the new approach and now [catcher] Jason [Varitek] has had to learn how to catch me and adjust to me,” said Schilling, who is 2-3 with a 2.97 earned-run average over his last six starts.

One aspect of the “new” Schilling is that he doesn’t waste a lot of pitches. There have been relatively few long counts when he has been on the mound because he is always around the plate.

And while he has had good control for most of his career, as a power pitcher in his “first” baseball life, Schilling would get his share of foul balls. Now when the opposition makes contact, the ball is generally put into play because Schilling doesn’t throw as hard. It took him 86 pitches to get through his six innings, only 63 for his final five innings.

That doesn’t mean he can’t rack up strikeouts. Last night Schilling fanned six, giving him 3,116 whiffs for his career, one behind Bob Gibson, who is 13th on the all-time list. It was the most strikeouts Schilling has had in a game since May 28, when he fanned 10 Cleveland Indians.

But in order to punch out opposing hitters now, Schilling has to be more pinpoint with his control and more intent on keeping batters off-balance as he throws his fastball, changeup, curveball, slider and splitter.

An umpire with a wide strike zone doesn’t hurt him these days, either.

Against Oakland last night, Schilling was spotting his pitches, especially his fastball, on the corner, at least in the opinion of plate umpire Jerry Meals. Twice Schilling caught Marco Scutaro looking at 88-mph fastballs on the outside corner for pitches Meals called strike three. Schilling also froze Mark Ellis with an 88-mph fastball for a called third strike.

Of Schilling’s six strikeouts, four were on called third strikes.

“He froze them with fastballs after setting them up with his other pitches,” said manager Terry Francona. “That tells you he located well. He hasn’t forgotten how to pitch. We gave him a game plan and he executed it.”

The variety of his pitches has impressed Schilling himself.

“I have five pitches I feel good about,” he said. “I can throw any of them at any time in the count, early in the count, even in the count or on 3 and 2. I’m starting to get [surprised] looks from the hitters at the plate, which is a good thing.”

Of course, when you’re making the conversion from power pitcher to finesse pitcher, you don’t get away with as many mistakes.

Barton took advantage of a fat 82-mph changeup in the first inning and launched it over the Oakland bullpen into the runway between the bleachers and the grandstand, giving the Athletics a quick 1-0 lead.

It was the ninth homer in 51 innings Schilling had coughed up since returning from the disabled list. The homer was the second in three batters over a two-start stretch for Schilling, who was knocked out of the Sept. 16 game against the Yankees when Derek Jeter took advantage of a hanging splitter to crush what turned out to be a game-winning three-run homer.

But with the playoffs looming, and maybe one abbreviated start on Sunday remaining on his regular-season workload, the Reinvention of Curt Schilling has reached a solid stage of development and offers the promise of postseason success.

skrasner@projo.com