Brenly’s Decision Was Key One

Curt Schilling talked his way into starting Game 4 of the World Series on three days’ rest.

He tried to talk his way into finishing it, but Bob Brenly wouldn’t hear it.

He should have.

The Arizona Diamondback manager, giving too much thought, perhaps, to using Schilling again on short rest in Game 7, allowed Game 4 to get away.

Although Schilling led, 3-1, and had thrown only 88 pitches in restricting the New York Yankees to that one run and three hits through seven innings, Brenly removed the tenacious right hander in favor of his young--and often erratic--closer Byung-Hyun Kim, asking him to get the final six outs amid escalating pressure and a roaring crowd of 55,863 in rocking Yankee Stadium.

The rest was history.

Another phenomenal chapter in Yankee history.

After striking out the side in the eighth, Kim allowed a two out, two run homer to Tino Martinez in the ninth, tying the game, 3-3, and Derek Jeter, 3 for 32 since the start of the American League’s Championship Series, homered in the 10th to deal the Diamondbacks a shocking, 4-3, defeat.

“I told him I could pitch another inning at least,” Schilling said of his dugout discussion with Brenly at the end of the seventh. “I told him there was no reason to take me out. I had made some big pitches in the sixth and seventh innings and that can take it out of you sometimes, but I told him I felt fine.”

Schilling stood at his locker in a stunned clubhouse.

The four of seven Series is now tied at two games apiece, and the Yankees--who came back from 0-2 to defeat the Oakland Athletics in the recent five game division series and from 0-2 to defeat the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 World Series--are assured of going back to Arizona for Game 6 Saturday night.

The Diamondbacks got what they needed from Schilling but wasted it after wasting a series of early scoring opportunities against Orlando Hernandez.

One key hit at the right time and it would never have come down to a pivotal decision by the manager.

Do you let Kim, 19 for 23 in save chances during a season in which closer Matt Mantei was lost to injuries, try to finish it in an effort to conserve Schilling for a Game 7 that might not be needed?

Or do you allow Schilling to gut out at least one more inning and maybe the final two, hoping he can give you a 3-1 Series lead?

“Certainly,” Brenly said, “[Game 7] entered into it somewhat, but we had a lead with six outs to go and we insisted all along we would go to [Kim] for two innings if necessary to close it out. It was a tremendous outing by Curt, but it was an easy decision to take him out considering he was starting on three days’ rest. It set up the way we hoped it would, but unfortunately it didn’t work out.”

Postseason pitchers starting on three days rest had been 1-9 since the 1999 playoffs, but Schilling pitched well enough to have won for the fifth time in five starts during the current postseason, which would have been a record.

He had insisted that the three days would be no big deal, and a Hall of Fame pitcher named Bob Gibson, a workhorse himself, had sat in the Yankee dugout before the game and said it was much ado about nothing.

Gibson pitched in three World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals and started Game 7 in 1964 on two days’ rest.

“It’s the World Series,” he said. “If you can’t pitch on three days’ rest you should go home. I never felt tired until the Series was over. You have plenty of time to rest [during the winter]. I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.”

Neither did Schilling, a similar workhorse and a throwback to the Gibson era.

“I was more worried about starting Game 1 on eight days’ rest than I was starting on three days’ rest,” he said. “I treated the three days like I would four.”

Schilling struck out nine and walked one. The only Yankee run off him came on a homer by Shane Spencer.

Although he kept insisting he wanted to go out for the eighth inning at least, he also acknowledged at one point that he was “pretty gassed.”

In the end, he would sit in the dugout, watching the lead evaporate, the game with it.

“[Kim] was incredible striking out the side in the eighth, got it down to one out, and sometimes you just have to take your hat off to the other team,” Schilling said. “It hurts to lose like that, but it’s a two out of three Series now and we’re going to need [Kim] if we’re going to win it.”

Two out of three was the theme as the Diamondbacks talked up the 22-year-old Kim and insisted they weren’t surprised that Schilling was lifted.

“He was pitching on three days’ rest and had given us seven great innings,” center fielder Steve Finley said. “You don’t want to burn him out. We have complete faith in BK. He hadn’t pitched in several days. He was capable of pitching three or four innings.”

Now Schilling, having thrown 190 pitches in his two starts, may have to come back again on three days’ rest in Game 7.

“We’ll worry about that if it happens, but I’m planning on pitching if I’m needed,” he said.