In reading the Boston Globe's account of Schilling's performance last night, the following struck me:

The thin air in mile-high Denver may have played a role by affecting one of his signature pitches.

"In a place like this, he didn't have a real good split," catcher Jason Varitek said. "Without that, it's hard to rely on your breaking balls, so you're going to have to locate your fastball."

That turned out to be a problem as well, particularly when he left a 95-mile-per-hour heater over the plate with an 0-and-2 count to Vinny Castilla in the fourth. Schilling had created a mess for himself by issuing consecutive walks to Royce Clayton and Todd Helton. And Castilla capitalized by pounding the fastball for a two-run double that put the Rockies ahead to stay.

"I made about as many mistakes in a span of three hitters as you can make," Schilling said, "and it beat us."

Now, Schilling had a track record at Coors which was not stellar:

The victory came against Curt Schilling, the Red Sox ace who came into the game with a 4-3 record and 5.35 earned run average in 12 starts at Coors Field.

So the Red Sox have a pitcher with an injured ankle. His out pitch doesn't work well at this park. It's a really lousy weather night (game time temp, 48 °F). Did anyone think, "Let's have Schilling skip this start and send him against the Giants on Friday." A game at Coors is likely to be won in a slugfest anyway, and a long reliever can get hammered just as easily as a number one starter.

The good news is he threw 113 pitches and says the ankle felt better (from the same Globe article):

But Schilling said his ankle has improved considerably and attributed his struggles more to shoddy command than physical infirmity.

"It feels better and it feels stronger," he said. "That's why tonight is as disappointing as it is. As good as I felt, I just had too much trouble executing."