Red Sox, game 1

4/3/2006 - Boston 7, Texas 3

So the first game is in the books (and yes, I'm 24 hours late with this.) And it went just about the way you'd script it if you're a Sox fan.

- Schilling went 7 very strong innings, giving up a 2-run homer and not much else.

- Coco Crisp didn't do much, but scored from first twice on doubles, easily each time, and made a great catch in the 9th.

- Alex Gonzalez got a couple of hits. (Though that may be a bad thing. If he gets off to a hot start, he'll look productive in a month, even if he isn't...)

- Mike Lowell hit a home run. One of the real big question marks going in to the season is whether Lowell's got anything left. 1 HR in the first game isn't tremendously meaningful, but it's a good thing to see anyway.

The only downside was the performance of Keith Foulke, who gave up a couple of long fly balls and a run, but apparently he was just working on locating his fastball with the 5 run lead, and wasn't mixing the change (his best pitch) in. There were dozens of panicked calls to WEEI today, as there will be every time he allows a baserunner, saying "cut him and make Papelbon the closer!" but I remain convinced that he'll be a very effective pitcher this year. Again.