Ace making big strikes Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling calls his first three innings of preseason game action a ‘breakthrough’ performance

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The man who already has carved out his own wing in the Red Sox Hall of Fame – based on just one season’s work – took about 0.8 seconds to answer the question on the lips of every avid Boston baseball fan.

“I felt good,” Curt Schilling said after being asked how he felt throwing his first three innings of nonsimulated game action in the 2005 spring training season on Monday. “I thought I threw the ball with a little bit more velocity today. Um, I thought I threw a lot more balls that felt normal today than any day in the past.”

Boston’s 38-year-old staff ace held court with about a dozen reporters and team personnel at a makeshift press conference in the City of Palms clubhouse to talk about his mechanics and health.

“I guess you could call it a breakthrough day in the sense that everything that I was hoping kind of would happen happened, from a physical standpoint,” said Schilling, who spewed the words forth like a man who has been dying to say them for months. “I feel I threw better than I’ve thrown all spring.

“I didn’t have any issues that I might have had earlier. The big thing will be tomorrow and how I feel, but today was a very big day to me.”

The 6-foot-5 right-hander, who is coming back from offseason ankle surgery to repair a detached tendon, threw his first three innings of “real” work in a team preseason scrimmage Monday at the Red Sox player development complex two miles down Edison Avenue from City of Palms Park.

Schilling pitched against a team of Triple-A players as well as teammate Bill Mueller. Catcher Jason Varitek stayed in Fort Myers to catch for Schilling instead of playing in a spring training game against the Dodgers at Vero Beach.

Pitching against Schilling was Charlie Zink, a knuckle-baller who played last season for the Portland Sea Dogs.

It was readily apparent as soon as one arrived at Boston’s player development complex which ballpark among the four the 235-pound Sox ace was pitching in. It was the one with the crowd of people lining the fence behind the backstop and along both the first and third baselines.

Schilling threw 37 pitches – 24 for strikes – in three innings of work and used all of his pitches without problems.

“I threw 18 in the first two innings and I definitely wanted to do more than that,” said the Anchorage, Alaska, native. “I was ready to throw 40 to 50, depending on the count, because the other day when I threw the 60, I was a little winded at the end.

“I’m sure it was more the format than anything because today I felt like it was a walk in the park”

He struck out two batters and yielded three hits, one of which was a double to Mueller. Another was a home run to nonroster spring training invitee Chip Ambres, who – even if he fails to play a single inning in the major leagues – will always have a good story to tell friends and family for the rest of his life.

“I gave up the home run on a pitch I’m just as apt to make in August as I am now. It wasn’t because my stuff wasn’t there. I hung a split[-fingered fastball],” Schilling said.

He didn’t hang much of anything to batters last year as he went 21-6 in his 14th major league baseball season and first with the Sox. He was first in the American League in winning percentage (.718), second with a 3.26 earned run average, and third in strikeouts with 203.

In the postseason, he was even better, despite getting knocked out of his first game against the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series and pitching two games with his ankle injury and the tendon temporarily sutured to his right ankle bone. He went 3-1 with a 3.57 ERA, 13 strikeouts, and 23 hits and helped lead the Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years.

He underwent his surgery on Nov. 8.

“I ended up having four separate surgeries in two hours when they were all finished,” Schilling explained. “In Game 6, the tendon that was dislocated split in half and wedged itself over the bone. And I had about a 6-inch tear in my tendon that they didn’t know about until they went in and fixed it.”

Pitching coach Dave Wallace said he was happy to see Schilling do more fielding and make some pickoff moves.

“I don’t feel like I did a whole lot effortwise, which is a great thing,” said Schilling with a smile he was unable to totally conceal. “As I’ve gotten better, it’s gotten better. I don’t wear the sock anymore for the swelling because I don’t have as much. The only real problem area we’ve got now is the back of my Achilles, which is probably the last spot we’re trying to get the swelling out of.”

Wallace was encouraged by the game setting in which Schilling ran to cover first on Mueller’s first-inning groundout and whirled to try to pick a runner off second.

“It was quicker than the simulated game, so it was good,” Wallace said. “You’re not concerned [about his ability to run], but it’s just nice to see him react naturally and get over” to first.

Schilling said he will pitch again Thursday and possibly in one of the games at Arizona just before the regular season opener on April 3. Perhaps another start later, he may be ready to go. Whatever the case, he will be with the team on opening day even though he won’t be pitching.

“I will travel with the team. I’ve been a nonfactor to this point enough,” he said. “This has been an incredibly frustrating period of time for me. The sooner I can get into baseball activities with 24 other guys suiting up, the better.”

Schilling knows his Sox are again considered underdogs to the Yankees, but he welcomes the challenge of trying to repeat.

“One thing we can’t be is complacent here. These fans won’t allow it, the media won’t allow it,” he said. “Anyone can win one, and this year I think we’re truly going to find out what we’re made of. The team west of us has done everything they can do to make sure we don’t go back, so we’re going to find out.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.