Just another afternoon in the City of Champions

Yesterday was a formerly rare occasion that has happened all too often in the last decade in Boston: one of our local teams celebrated the championship of another one.

With the Boston Bruins parading around Fenway Park on Duck Boats during the pregame, holding the Stanley Cup, I can say that you're an extremely lucky bastard if you were at yesterday's Red Sox-Brewers game. The Bruins wore their jerseys and Red Sox hats, then threw out the ceremonial first pitches.

There's not much cooler than the synergy between the four pro sports franchises in Massachusetts and that's also one of the best parts about living in this area, at this time. The unscripted scene at Fenway is something that people in most other parts of the country can't even imagine and we've been witness to that a bunch of times. It's also a symbol of how much we love all our teams, not just one or two. If you win here, you'll be extremely popular.

The Red Sox (43-28) certainly didn't spoil the good times as for the second time in three games, they smoked Milwaukee (40-33), this time it was 12-3 as Boston took two out of three in the series.

Brewers ace Yovani Gollardo (8-4) was knocked around for eight runs (five earned) on nine hits with two walks and four strikeouts in three innings.

Red Sox starter Tim Wakefield (4-2), who had just turned 40 the last time the Bruins won the Cup in 1972, was the third straight Boston pitcher to throw eight innings. Wake allowed three earned runs on three hits with a walk and six strikeouts. With Clay Buchholz placed on the DL with back trouble, Wakefield's spot in the rotation is locked in for at least the next few starts.

Carl Crawford was also placed on the DL (on Saturday) with a hamstring strain but that didn't stop the Red Sox from getting 14 hits including three homers.

Boston put up six runs in the first inning to take most intrigue out of it on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Jacoby Ellsbury (2 hits, 2 RBIs) scored on Gallardo's error, Kevin Youkilis crushed his 11th home run of the season (a three-run bomb) and Ellsbury delivered a ground-rule two-run double in his second at-bat of the frame.

Crazy Nyjer Morgan got the Brewers on the board with a two-run homer in the second.

Boston added two more runs in the fourth including a solo home run by Dustin Pedroia (his sixth).

Pedroia's sacrifice fly in the fifth made it 9-2 and Marco Scutaro hit a two-run shot (his 2nd of the season) in the sixth.

Prince Fielder hit a solo homer in the seventh and Adrian Gonzalez closed out the scoring with an RBI triple (the 1000th hit of his career) in the seventh.

The San Diego Padres, Gonzalez's former team (and his hometown), come to Fenway for three games beginning tonight. Andrew Miller was called up from Pawtucket to make his first start for the Red Sox. Padres left-hander Wade LeBlanc takes the ball for the worst team in the NL West.

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Beltre and Dice-K help Red Sox split with Indians

The bad news seems to come daily for the Boston Red Sox and yesterday was no different as Kevin Youkilis will miss the rest of the season with his random thumb injury.

Every time you want to bury this team you can't though as they emerge from their shallow grave with a nice win. Last night, the Sox (62-47) earned a split with the Indians (46-63) thanks to a 6-2 win at Fenway Park.

There were basically two reasons why Boston won this game: Daisuke Matsuzaka and Adrian Beltre. Dice-K (8-3) had probably his second best start of the season (behind the near no-hitter at the Phillies) as he went eight impressive innings, allowing one earned run on five hits with two walks and six strikeouts.

For much of the game, Cleveland rookie Josh Tomlin matched Dice-K, starting out the first three innings with a perfect game. However, with one swing, Beltre gave Boston all the runs they would need as he crushed a fourth inning grand slam over the Monster.

Shin-Soo Choo had given the Indians an early 1-0 lead in the first with a solo homer to center.

J.D. Drew added two important insurance runs in the eighth with a clutch two-run single.

Even a 6-1 lead at home isn't safe for Hideki Okajima (2 hits, 1 run, 1 walk). Luis Valbuena hit an RBI single in the ninth and when two runners were on base, Terry Francona had to go to Jonathan Papelbon since they needed this game bad.

Papelbon made it interesting as usual, walking the bases loaded (putting the tying run at the plate in the form of nobody Trevor Crowe) but striking out two batters to end it. It was his 26th save of the season.

For the first time since before Memorial Day (it's an absolute joke that it's been that long), the Red Sox will play the Yankees. The two teams have four in the Bronx this weekend, starting tonight and ending Monday afternoon.

Clay Buchholz faces Javier Vazquez tonight at Yankee Stadium. The Bombers come in six games ahead of Boston and half a game ahead of Tampa Bay (the wild card leaders). Needless to say, the Red Sox have to win at least a couple games in the series to stay alive. They simply can't afford to be swept.