There’s no danger of Curt Schilling’s mouth being disabled. The Boston Herald’s Karen Guregian reports on Schilling’s most recent visit to WEEI.
Schilling believes much of the current wave of negativity surrounding Renteria stems from comments made on WEEI last week by Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. During a visit to Boston, the Cardinals skipper said his former shortstop was a “sensitive and shy guy . . . you know Boston. There’s a lot of expectation here. The fans are very passionate and they’re not going to be as forgiving as they were in St. Louis. So we’re concerned that if he doesn’t really play to their expectations, and they start hootin’ on him . . . it will not help Edgar Renteria. . . . He’s a very good player and I think it’s gonna be hard for him to hide here.”
Schilling wasn’t shy, referring to those remarks as “absolutely, totally inappropriate.”
“I love Tony La Russa,” Schilling said. “I just thought he put Edgar in a very bad situation, especially for a player he talks about and cares about so much. I thought he stuck him in a corner there.”
Schilling has a point. Whether or not it was intentional, whether or not La Russa was acting as a jilted manager, that’s exactly what happened. He exposed Renteria.
`He’s struggling, there’s no question,” Schilling said of Renteria. “Now all eyes are on him every at-bat, every pitch. Everybody has an answer. Everybody has a solution. Unfortunately, none of those are going to work until Edgar gets over the hump himself. He knows that. We know that, and we’re all OK with that. The great thing about this is, (GM) Theo (Epstein) has built a team to overcome having 1-2-3-4-5 guys who are hurt, or not meeting expectations. And we’ve done that.”