More Than a Schilling’s Worth Here

His stare was chilly. His steps were soggy. His pitches scattered across the plate in a fine, blowing mist.

Curt Schilling looked like the New England night that he conquered Sunday night, a man become a town become a crusade.

He is going to bring the Red Sox a world championship if he has to hobble on an 86-year-old ankle and endure the rearranging of 1,918 stitches to do it.

“You cannot describe what is happening out there with Curt,” said Alan Embree, shaking his head. “You just cannot describe it.”

Whatever it is, it resides in the same mystical place shared by his team, a 6-2 winner over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 2 of the World Series, suddenly two victories away from their first world title in 86 years.

You see, Schilling woke up Sunday and couldn’t pitch.

“I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t move,” he said.

It was his torn ankle, injured several weeks ago. For a second consecutive start, the team doctor had earlier sutured the tendon into place so it wouldn’t flop over when it pitched. But this time, something was wrong.

“I wasn’t going to pitch.... I don’t know what happened, but I knew that when I woke up there was a problem,” he said.

A problem, all right. He had to pitch. He was traded here last winter for just these October moments. Desperate generations were preparing to huddle inside overcoats or living rooms to watch him pitch.

He was reminded of this while driving to Fenway Park to tell his bosses that, well, um, he couldn’t pitch.

“There were signs every mile from my house to this ballpark on fire stations, on telephone poles, wishing me luck,” he said.

He walked into the trainer’s room, to team doctor Bill Morgan, propped up the ankle, and took one last look.

It was a stitch. But it wasn’t funny.

“Somehow we had put an extra stitch in this time ... and we had caught a nerve in the leg,” Schilling said. “We took that stitch out and things started to change almost immediately.”

Well, sort of.

Instead of the pain being unbearable, it was able to be masked with drugs.

Instead of sitting on the bench in his tennis shoes, he was able to pitch with blood oozing through his sock.

“I honest to God did not think I was going to take the ball today because I didn’t think I could,” he said. “And then everything starts happening.”

Six innings happened. No earned runs happened. Schilling happened.

So hindered that he couldn’t even hop off the mound to celebrate either of his two inning-ending double-play grounders, the buzz-headed veteran showed his young long-haired teammates that strength can come in many fashions.

Coupled with his previous victory over the New York Yankees after a similar pregame suturing, Schilling now not only leads the Red Sox in postseason wins, but saves.

“When he first hurt his ankle, he wasn’t even supposed to pick up a ball,” Embree said. “It was our worst nightmare. And now look at it.”

Fifty-four outs from their first world championship in 86 years looks pretty much like a dream, but the Red Sox had best finish it, and quick, because Schilling may have finally awoken.

Before Sunday’s game, Morgan said that Schilling’s pain was such a concern, the experimental suturing might not be continued.

“Honestly, we may not be able to do it a third time,” Morgan told Associated Press. “It depends on what his tissues look like.”

Schilling was noncommittal, saying, “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.... I’m a little beat-up right now.”

Then how do you think the other guys look?

Every punch the Cardinals threw, Schilling somehow managed to land a counter.

They tried to wear him down by taking deep counts, Edgar Renteria beginning the game with a 12-pitch at-bat that featured six two-strike foul balls.

He wore them down instead, barely allowing a handful of balls hit hard out of the infield.

They tried to upset him with a running game. He pitched them into a dead halt, throwing a double-play line drive to end one sprinting inning.

“It’s unbelievable,” pitching coach Dave Wallace said. “Look not only at the circumstances, but who he’s doing it against. The Yankees and the Cardinals? Two of the best batting lineups in a long, long time. Amazing.”

Schilling was even strong enough, with average pitches that found every back alley, to even overcome his team’s four errors.

Bill Mueller knocked a Jim Edmonds’ foul pop out of Jason Varitek’s glove? Two pitches later, Schilling retired Jim Edmonds on a grounder.

Mueller lets a grounder bounce off his chest? On the next pitch, Schilling retired Tony Womack on another grounder.

In his sixth and final inning, two consecutive Red Sox errors put him behind one of those plastic eight-balls that fans were passing in the stands.

Again, all it took was one pitch, a Reggie Sanders grounder that saved them all.

Shortly before that play, Schilling spoke to Mueller on the mound. He might as well have been speaking to a region that is still afraid to breathe.

“I told Billy, I was going to get the next out,” he said, the promise keeper.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.