Another solid effort by Curt Schilling helped the Red Sox defeat the Angels on Saturday afternoon by the final score of 8-0. Schilling went 8 strong innings and now has thrown 14 consecutive scoreless innings. Schilling gave up 4 hits, walked 1 and struck out 6. His ERA now stands at 2.84.

Big Papi was the man again going 2 for 4 with 4 rbi’s. He clubbed a long home run to center field in the 8th inning as well. Eric Hinske, who gave Kevin Youkilis the day off, filled in nicely going 2 for 3 with 2 walks. Hinske has now hit safely in his last 13 games.

J.D. Drew’s 13 game hitting streak ended on Saturday as he was hitless in 3 at bats. He would have had one more chance to extend the streak in the bottom of the 8th but manager Terry Francona pinch hit Wily Mo Peña for him.

The Red Sox hope the rain stays away tomorrow as Josh Beckett will go for his third win of the season at 1:05 PM. He will be opposed by Ervin Santana.

Behind another strong effort from Tim Wakefield and the bats of David Ortiz and Mike Lowell, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim by the final score of 10-1. The game was 4-1 entering the 8th inning until the Red Sox put up a 6 spot in the bottom half of the inning.

The knuckleball was dancing on Friday night. In seven innings of work, Wakefield gave up 5 hits, 1 run, 1 earned run, walked 2 batters and struck out 3. Ortiz was 2 for 5 with 3 rbi’s and Lowell was 2 for 4 with 3 rbi’s. Doug Mirabelli added a home run and had 2 rbi’s in the contest.

The Red Sox went to closer Jonathan Papelbon in the eighth inning. It was a save situation at the time and once again, he was electric on the mound. Using the “Papelglare”, he was able to strike out Vlad Guerrero on a 97 mph fastball and got Garrett Anderson to fly out. He threw a total of 6 pitches. Because the Sox put up 6 runs in the bottom half of the inning, manager Terry Francona brought in Mike Timlin to finish off the game.

The Sox will face the Angels again on Saturday. The game starts at 4:05 PM and will be shown nationally on FOX.

As you all know by now, the Red Sox game on Thursday was postponed due to the lovely weather we are having here in the Northeast. What you probably didn’t know was that the game on Thursday was also supposed to be the Red Sox tribute to the late Boston Celtics legend, Red Auerbach.

The Red Sox were supposed to don their green uniforms usually reserved for spring training. The Red Sox had hung some of the Celtics championship banners from the Monster but they were taken down when the heavy rain started falling. There was many former Celtics legends, coaches, and current players on hand for the festivities including Bill Russell, Frank Ramsey Jim Loscutoff, Jo Jo White, Dana Barros and Danny Ainge. Also present were five members of the current team including injured forward Paul Pierce and head coach Doc Rivers.

Bill Russell met with the Boston media members during a press conference and had some great words about Jackie Robinson.

“You may or may not know that I was a pallbearer at Jackie Robinson’s funeral.”The interview room at Fenway Park became silent.

“The day after he died, Rachel Robinson called me to ask if I would be a pallbearer,” Russell recalled. “When Jackie broke into baseball, I was in junior high school. To all of us, he was our hero, and here she was asking me to be one of his pallbearers.”

This, quite naturally, puzzled Russell.

“I remember saying, `Can I ask why?’ And she said, `You were his favorite athlete,’ ” Russell said. “How did I get to be Jackie Robinson’s favorite? He was a hero to all of us.

“Whenever I hear his name now, I’m very touched by that,” he added. “When I was growing up in the projects one of the reasons he was such a hero to us was because he was regarded as a scholar and an athlete.”

All I can say is WOW!!! One of baseball’s pioneers favorite athletes was Bill Russell. That tells you a lot about who Jackie Robinson was.

I haven’t seen anywhere whether or not the Red Sox will try to redo the tribute. I would think they would considering how much Red Auerbach has meant to the great city of Boston. Current Celtics coach Doc Rivers agrees,

“He was bigger than just basketball, and especially in this city,” Rivers said. “I think he belongs everywhere in the city — in all the arenas. He meant that much.”

Russell also had some great words about Auerbach,

Russell discussed Auerbach’s social influence on the city, which was then struggling through a period of deep racial division.

“He had no preconceived notions of what a player looked like,” Russell said, adding that Auerbach’s attitude extended to all different kinds of physical prototypes. “All he was interested in was results.”

The Red Sox are a class organization and I know the Red Sox brass will do the right thing and set up another day to honor him.

Sorry for the delay folks. I had to edit and go through the 450 pictures I took at Opening Day at Fenway on Tuesday to put together a slideshow for everyone to view. Due to the size of the photos, I will only post a few here and a link to the slideshow. I hope you enjoy. It was an absolute blast to be there at opening day and it was a day I will never forget.

If you would like to see the whole slideshow, click here. To just go through the album one by one, you can click here.