Boston Red Sox defeat Atlanta Braves, 6-1

ATLANTA -- This is what a good parent does during first semester of freshman year when there's evidence that the child who's away at school is failing. You hop on a plane and go to the scene to find out what's happening.

Red Sox GM Theo Epstein came to Atlanta yesterday and suddenly all was right with the Sox. Nomar Garciaparra had three more hits, including a homer (so did the offday make all the difference or would one of those hits have won the game Thursday?), Curt ...

ATLANTA -- Curt Schilling made it as clear as the jewels on his World Series ring. With the Red Sox plummeting toward irrelevance -- and their fans figuratively preparing to mark the Fourth of July by plunging en masse from bridges across New England -- Schilling declared of the team's recent crisis: "Somebody, somewhere has to figure out how to turn it around."

Why not him?

Who better than the big-game aficionado to brush off a four-game losing streak as if it were ...