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AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v ANGELS


October 5, 2004


Curt Schilling


ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA: Game One

Q. Curt, first of all, how is the ankle? Terry hinted that maybe the play that you had to cover first was when it started, and then you seemed to aggravate it again on the overthrow?

CURT SCHILLING: I tweaked it, actually, in about the fifth inning, and then I misplaced it twice on that play, so it's a little sore right now, but these guys will take care of it.

Q. What effect did you feel on the ankle on that last pitch? Did it come into play?

CURT SCHILLING: Oh, I wasn't really thinking about it. I just left Tek (inaudible) and left the ball too much out of play. I didn't think it really affected me, but you just left the ball out, they were swinging the bat good today, needed to make a lot of pitches today.

Q. How would you assess your performance entirely? It was a bit of a struggle but you never did (Inaudible)?

CURT SCHILLING: You know what, this is a different time of year, and assessing your performance takes on a different meaning. We won today. I felt incredibly strong in the bullpen, velocity-wise, I felt like we had decent command. Got into the game, did not have real good command today, had real good velocity, but every time we needed to make a pitch when it was a game, Tek put the right pitch down and we made a pitch, or we made a play, and at this time of the year, you know, I knew I wasn't as sharp as I have been. This is probably as bad as I have thrown command-wise in five, six, seven weeks, but you don't look at the whole picture right now. When you are in the game, you have to focus on the pitch at hand and just nail your focus pitch-to-pitch. And so looking back, I made some mistakes today. I left the ball over the plate a couple times. Darin's home run, Troy's home run, the first pitch I tried to throw a fastball, then threw a fastball and left it in the middle of the plate. Luckily at that point solo home runs don't beat you, and I can pick up my solo home run, but we got up one nothing in the first and at that point, given where we are at, who I am, and the situation, my thought has been they absolutely cannot tie the game. I didn't want them to have any momentum whatsoever, and like I said, every time that that scenario showed itself, we would do what we had to do defensively to keep us ahead in the game.

Q. Curt, I knew you were touching on the defense a little bit, but what were your overall impressions of the defense, and specifically, the ball up the middle in the third that Anderson hit?

CURT SCHILLING: Well, Orlando is phenomenal, has been since the day he got here. He is a game changer on the field. There aren't a lot of those, I think, in the game. You know, Scott Rolan [ph] would be one I would think of offhand, but he changes games, and that was -- to me, the ball goes by me, I am thinking hit, I see him, he has still got a ways to the ball. I am thinking Garret has got a sore knee, maybe he has got a shot. That was just a phenomenal play and that's -- at this time of the year, guys like that step up.

Q. So Curt, where they put -- your team put seven on the board in the fourth. Does that change what you do the rest of the way?

CURT SCHILLING: A little bit. A little bit, given the fact that I am anticipating pitching another game against these guys. But from an execution standpoint, no. I mean, we still want to go out and keep them down. You want to bury them. But there are certain things I tried to do after that to get a feel for different situations. My next start against these guys, see, get a feel for making certain pitches to certain guys, but I didn't have good enough command today to really explore it as best I could, and with an offense like that, you don't want to allow them to have a 7th inning like they had and get back in the game.

Q. Curt, in these five game series we often talk about how important it is to get off to start, win that first game. Your thoughts on that.

CURT SCHILLING: Well, we are up 1-nothing. I have never looked at the post -- tomorrow's starting pitchers will determine momentum going into the game, and if you are a good team and an experienced team, like both these clubs are, I don't really know that there is a carryover. I don't think that there is a carryover. It's a tough place for us to win, but we have got Pedro going, and I am pretty excited about that thought.

End of FastScripts...

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