The hostilities are over

Curt Schilling painted a masterpiece yesterday at Fenway to help the Red Sox to an 11-4 victory in the last of the 19 regular-season games played this year between Boston and New York. Kevin Brown's first outing since he broke his hand didn't quite go as the Yankees hoped - he threw 65 pitches in two-thirds of inning, giving up 6 hits and 4 earned runs in the process. The Red Sox led 7-0 after two innings, and that was more than enough cushion for Schilling, who gave up just one hit over seven innings and became the first pitcher this year to reach 21 wins.

The only vaguely uncomfortable moment for Schilling came in the fourth inning, when he threw twelve straight balls to load the bases. I haven't checked the stats (though I'm sure there are those who have), but I'm betting that hasn't happened to him very often in recent times. He got back on quickly, though, and proceeded to make the Yankee hitters' lives miserable for the next three innings.

This being a Yankees-Red Sox game, tempers flared late on, but nothing like on the scale of what we saw earlier this season - there was a lot of arguing and pointing of fingers, Pedro Astacio, Brad Halsey and Joe Torre were ejected, but that was about it. Of course, this may not be the last these two teams see of each other this season - although players and managers are reluctant to evoke a possible repeat of last year's ALCS because it would be disrespectful to Minnesota, Oakland et al, certain sportswriters are already lining up the possible rotations - so there might well be other opportunities for Boston and New York to express their love for each other in a few weeks' time.