Celtics 144, Pelicans 118

 

Mazzulla brought Jaylen back in for last night's game but sat Jayson, but no worries: the Boston Celtics beat New Orleans, 144-118 to secure the No. 2 seed in the playoffs. 

Sam Hauser was hot outside the line, hitting all of his team-leading 24 points on three-pointers (8-12 from downtown). White scored all of his 9 points on threes as well, and Walsh scored all 6 of his on threes, too. Brown scored 23 points total, including 2-3 shooting outside the line, and Pritchard scored 21, racking up the double double with 10 assists.

The Celtics (55-26) have only one game left to the regular season, a Sunday matchup with the Orlando Magic (45-36) in the TD Garden. The game may be a playoff preview, as the current standings have the Celtics facing the winner of a Magic-Sixers play-in round.  

  

Cardinals 3, Red Sox 2

 

Losing I'm getting used to, but what makes this one particularly galling is we lost to our old "friend" Dustin May, who entered this game with an 0-2 record and an ERA of 15.89. The Red Sox managed to improve May to 1-2 and drop his ERA to 9.45.

Zack Kelly took the loss, falling to 0-1 on the season with an ERA of 8.10. Kelly came on in relief in the bottom of the fifth with one out, no one on base, and the Sox leading the game by a run. He promptly gave up a single, walked the next batter, allowed a run to come in with a single by the third batter, tying the game, and then advanced the runners with a wild pitch. The winning run scored on a sac fly by the fourth batter Kelly faced before he finally got the third out.

The Boston batters weren't able to catch up to the Cards' 3-2 lead. Roman Anthony was benched for some reason, but Wilyer Abreu went 2-4 at the plate with two singles, neither of which scored a run, and Trevor Story accounted the only Red Sox runs by getting on base by hitting into an RBI fielder's choice in the fourth and later stealing home from third base. 

With the loss, the Red Sox (4-9) return to being the worst team in either the American or the National League, two games back from the fourth-place Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East.  

If you can stomach any more of this, LHP Ranger Suarez (0-1, 8.46) starts tonight for the Sox against St. Louis' RHP Kyle Leahy (1-1, 5.40). If it gives you any hope, Suarez is 1-0 against the Cards in two career starts with an ERA of 1.13 over eight innings versus St. Louis.    

   

 

Knicks 112, Celtics 106

 

No Brown, no win. No way no Knicks are here to stay.

The Boston Celtics traveled down to Madison Square Garden and gave Jaylen Brown the night off to get ready for the playoffs. The Celtics led after three quarters and had a one-point lead with two minutes left, but a pair of Josh Hart threes in the last minute got a win for the Knicks, despite a pair of double doubles by Tatum (24 points, 13 rebounds) and Neemias Queta (10 points, 10 rebounds). 

The Knicks' victory doesn't mean shit. The Celtics (54-26) still lead the Atlantic Division by two games with two left. They still trail Detroit by four in the East. Even though they didn't clinch last night, they're still going to go to the Playoffs as the No. 2 seed.

The hapless New Orleans Pelicans (26-54) come to the TD Garden tonight for the season's penultimate game. The Celtics will win and clinch the Atlantic, and in the playoffs face the winner of a Magic-Sixers play-in tournament.      

Shadows, Still

 

For some 228 hours now since February 13th, I've been playing the video game Assassin's Creed Shadows, and I've still not finished my first full play-through. This is by far the most time I've spent in completing any game. 

Since neither the Bruins nor the Celtics played last night, and since the Red Sox played early and we covered them yesterday, the Gaming Desk is taking over posting for today to talk about Shadows. Remember, video games are e-sports.

Prior to AC Shadows, the most time I've spent completing a single playthrough of any game was 149 hours for Death Stranding. I'm almost 80 hours past that and still not through Shadows.  

Actually, my record for non-repeat time in a game is 335 hours in Ark: Survival Evolved and I actually never even finished that one. I played it single-player style although it's actually designed to be a multi-player game, and the enormous number of hours I spent were trying to accomplish alone what a team of players is supposed to achieve. After a while, I was just kind of hanging out in (barely) survival mode until the sheer futility of trying to craft a larger encampment finally got the better of me. 

But back to Shadows. I'm far enough into the game that I can see I'm approaching the end. I'm now at Level 61 and there are only three major bosses left to dispel, although side quests keep unexpectedly popping up. Also, there's still one ally I haven't yet found and some of those "how many of these things can you find?" quests that I may never complete. 

Shadows is a truly open-world game with a lot of freedom, but one consequence of all that freedom is I've not completed until late some side quests that should have been played earlier. For example, there's a side quest that unlocks a significant combat skill I wish I had picked up far earlier, and others where I finally find out who those seemingly random enemies who kept challenging me actually were, and why they were so angry with me. "I need you to kill all the silver bandits in the province," a samurai tells me, weeks after I had randomly taken out the last one.

I'm not going for full completion, i.e., every possible achievement, but I don't feel like I've beaten a game until I complete at least every quest and side quest, and uncovered every question mark on the map. My guess is it's going to take another 20 to 30 hours before I'm done, although if it takes longer I might at least be able to see that the game lasted longer than fucking Ark.

Red Sox 5, Brewers 0

 

OMG! OMG! OMG! The Red Sox won another game! We are SO back, baby! We're not only going to the World Series, we're gonna win it!

The embattled Boston Red Sox won their fourth game of the season today, their first back-to-back win this year and first shutout, and in so doing, won their first series of 2026.

Sonny Gray pitched 6⅓ innings with no runs, five hits, two K's, and only two walks. The relief was outstanding again, with Weissert, Samaniego, and Watson giving up no runs, only one hit, and one walk.

Offensively, Trevor Story was the hero again, hitting a sac fly for a run in the 3rd and an RBI single in the 7th. Wilyer Abreu remained hot (.383), going two-for-four with an RBI single of his own, and later  crossing the plate on a Carlos Narváez grounder.

The Red Sox improve to 4-8 (.333), still dead last in the AL East, but no longer the worst team in the League. They've passed Seattle (.308) and Oakland (.300) and are tied with the White Sox and, over in the National League, the Washington Nationals. 

The Red Sox are off tomorrow - enjoy your rest, boyos, you deserve it - and then start a six-game road trip in St. Louis (7-5). Probable pitchers for game one are Connelly Early (0-0. 2.89) and our old "friend," Dustin May (0-2, 15.89). May went 1-4 for us early last year, which is why "friend" is in quotation marks. And no, that ERA is not a typo.

Three straight, anyone?

Red Sox 3, Brewers 2

 

OMG! OMG! OMG! The Red Sox won a game! We're back, baby! We're going to the World Series!

Crochet Day paid dividends. Garrett went 6⅓ innings, with seven strikeouts, five hits, and only two runs. Kelly, Whitlock, and Chapman were near perfect in relief - no hits, no runs, and only one walk. Meanwhile, Trevor Story hit a two-RBI double in the sixth, and in the next at-bat, Caleb Durbin, pinch hitting for Marcelo Mayer, brought in the winning run on a grounder.

The Red Sox are still in last place in the AL East, 5½ back from New York, and still have the worst record (3-8) in MLB.  But, hey, one game at a time!

This afternoon, Sonny Gray (1-0, .450) starts for Boston against Brewer's rookie Shane Droham, making his major-league debut. A win today would give the Sox their first series win of the season.

Celtics 113, Hornets 102

Jaylen Brown scored 35 points and Jayson Tatum 23, and Derrick White scored all 12 of his points on threes last night, going 4-5 from outside. Payton Pritchard scored all 12 of his from outside the line, too, going 4-7 on threes and 4-8 overall. Nikola Vučević had seven rebounds and scored two points, but also added two assists and two steals. 

The Hornets outscored the Celtics,  31-20, in the first quarter, including 13 points from LaMelo Ball, who finished the game with 36. But Boston fought back, retaking the lead mid-way through the third, and after some back-and-forth lead changes, held on for the win.   

With three games left to the regular season, the Celtics are 54-25 and are three games up on the Knicks (51-28), who they play on Thursday. Based on the current standings, the Celtics will face the winner of the Philly-Orlando play-in series in the first round of the playoffs.    

Carolina 6, Bruins 5 (OT)

 

The other day, I commented on Morgan Geekie's lack of recent scoring, and then last night, he came back in a big way, scoring three goals in what sadly turned out to be the Bruins third straight loss.

Geekie scored twice in the first period and again in the second, all even-strength goals, to complete his hat trick. Hampus Lindholm started the scoring with an goal early in the first, but the real heroics were Pavel Zacha's goal in the third to tie the game up and send it into overtime. Unfortunately, the Hurricanes scored in OT and took the win.

Swayman made 18 saves in the net before being pulled after allowing five goals, including three in the first nine minutes of the second period. Joonas Korpisalo stopped the 16 shots he faced in regulation, but the winning goal in OT managed to get past him.

The Bruins pick up a point for taking the game into OT and the standings don't rally change much, despite three consecutive losses. They still lead the Wild Card race, four points ahead of Ottawa for the first berth and six up on contenders Columbus. The most likely playoff situation still has the Bruins facing Tampa Bay in the first round.    

The Bruins better figure out a way to deal with the Lightning - they're 0-2-1 against Tampa Bay this season, and will be facing them Saturday afternoon (12:30 pm) in the Garden.

Brewers 8, Red Sox 6

 

The worst team in the majors lost the opening game of their second home series, falling to 1-4 in Fenway so far this season. Third consecutive loss, eighth loss in their last ten games. This time, they blew a 3-0 lead.

Last night, starting pitcher Brayan Bello lasted only 3⅓ innings, pulled in the top of the fourth after loading the bases up on a single and two walks. After Milwaukee then scored their first run of the game on a fielding error, that was enough for Cora to pull his starter. All three runners on base eventually scored, so Bello was charged with four runs, his ERA ballooning to 9.00. 

The bullpen gave up another four runs. This team sucks.

The Red Sox (2-8) are 5½ games out of first place in the AL East and 1½ back from the second-worst team in the league (Oakland). For what it's worth, if they were in the National League, they'd be a half game behind last-place San Francisco.

But it's Crochet Day! Hope springs eternal! IF there were to be a turnaround this season, and granted that's a big "if," it would start with Garrett Crochet (1-1, 3.27). The lefty's started twice against the Brewers for a total of 12⅔ innings, He's 0-1 in those two starts but his ERA was 2.13 so he's due for a win.  He'll be up against the Brewers' Jacob Misiorowski (1-0, 2.45), a second-year right-handed pitcher who has never pitched in Fenway before or faced the Sox.

Celtics 115, Raptors 101

 

On an Easter Sunday when both the Bruins and the Red Sox suffered losses, it was up to the Celtics to be the Christ to the two beggars on the cross and take the win, beating Toronto, 115-101. We even had an Easter resurrection with Nikola Vučević returning to the lineup for 13:00 minutes off the bench, four points, four rebounds, and an assist.

The ever-reliable Jaylen Brown led all teams with 26 points, while Jayson Tatum had his usual twin double with 23 points and 13 rebounds, all defensive. Overall, the Celtics outrebounded the Raptors, 44-31. 

With four games left to the season, the Celtics (53-25) trail Detroit by four in the East. On Tuesday, our old friends Grant Williams (2019-2023) and Xavier Tillman (2023-2026) return to the TD Garden with the Charlotte Hornets (43-36) for an 8:00 pm game on NBC.       

Padres 8, Red Sox 6

 

At 2-7, the Boston Red Sox are now officially the worst team in Major League Baseball. An embarrassment to Fenway Park, the proud Red Sox tradition, and the people of New England. It's only the first week of April, but already they're five games back in the standings.

The Sox had a 4-0 lead after three innings . . . 

And now we face a three-game home series against the Milwaukee Bucks (7-2). Brayan Bello (0-1, 9.64) starts tonight against the Bucks' Brandon Woodruff (1-0, 3.60).  

Let's win a few games, okay, boys?

Flyers 2, Bruins 1 (OT)

 

Pavel Zacha tied the game up on a power play in the third period, with an assist by Mittelstadt and Pastrnak, but the Bruins lost in the OT for their third consecutive loss and meanwhile can anyone even remember the last time Morgan Geekie scored a goal? 

The Bruins (43-26-9) still pick up one point in the standings with the OT loss, and still lead the Wild Card  race, five points ahead of Ottawa and six on the Islanders. 

The Bruins travel down to Carolina on Tuesday for a game against the Hurricanes (49-22-6), who are sitting pretty on top on the East. Perhaps the Bruins could catch them off guard and, I don't know, maybe win a game? Just winging ideas out here. Spit-balling.