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Two innings into last night's game, Curt Schilling and the Red Sox were down 5-0 and the bloggers were on in full force. What were the Sox doing? How could Sox management allow Schilling, he of the 7.00 ERA, to continue to pitch in the midst of a pennant race? How could the team justify using the stretch run as spring training for the former number one Sox hurler?

Four innings later, the game at 5-4 Tampa Bay, Schilling exited. The big right-hander had thrown four successive shutout innings but still the critics ranted. How could the Sox be taking a chance with Schilling on the mound with the hated Yankees just a game and half back?

Youthful general manager Theo Epstein may be taking some heat as the Red Sox allow Schilling to effectively rehab during a pennant race but it is easy to see why he is giving the ace the time to work out his kinks.

The team's pitching in 2005 has been horrendous. With a team ERA of 4.87, the Sox rank 11th in the American League and 24th overall in baseball. Though the Sox are 23 games over five hundred in the band box of Fenway Park, the team is a game under five hundred on the road, the place where a team's pitching staff best reveals its overall talent.

The bottom line is that the Sox are going no where unless Curt Schilling returns to the form that made him the ace of the Boston staff in 2004. Epstein realizes that this team will not make it through the playoffs and compete for another World Series title unless Schilling returns to his number one status level.

The team has four decent starters and those four have put Boston in a position to compete down the stretch for the Division title. In Matt Clement, the team has a decent number two starter and in David Wells, an OK number three guy. With Bronson Arroyo and Tim Wakefield, the Red Sox have above average fourth and fifth guys.

But that foursome pitches in that order only if Schilling is the number one guy. Without Curt, Clement would have to be the go to man in the playoffs and he just isn't that caliber. Wells is no longer a number two guy and Arroyo is barely average at number three.

Epstein understands this completely. A year ago a struggling Sox team was totally shaken up when Epstein shocked the baseball world by trading Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs. With Garciaparra a fan fixture in Boston, the Sox GM took an enormous chance.

In taking that chance, Epstein proved he was not content with just winning during the regular season. The blockbuster trade served as the catalyst that jump started a sputtering Sox team and propelled them to their first World Series title since the early nineteen hundreds.

So upsetting fans in an effort to bring home a title is nothing new for Epstein.

Though the team is still loaded with hitting talent, the post season could be cruel to a Sox team without a number one starter. The Sox need Schilling, the man who became a legend in Boston in 2004 with his gutsy performances, to be the Schilling of last year. Otherwise their chance of repeating is nil.

Epstein understands this completely, so the Sox will risk the pennant race in return for a real shot at winning another a title. After winning a title, you perhaps have even more moxie, but then again, anyone with the courage to trade Nomar Garciaparra at the time the shortstop was still a Boston folk hero has shown he has the courage to handle the critics.

And Epstein took full notice of the fact that Schilling pitched four consecutive scoreless innings as the Sox came from the 5-0 deficit to win in the bottom of the ninth, 7-6. The bloggers be damned.