Boston's David Ortiz is soaked in the locker room after Boston's 9-1 victory over the Angels in Game 3 of the American League division playoff series Sunday in Anaheim, Calif.

Anaheim, Calif. ? Brilliant as ever in the postseason, Curt Schilling helped give the Boston Red Sox some time off.

The way they’re playing, maybe that’s the last thing they need.

Schilling worked seven masterful innings, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez homered, and the Red Sox routed the Los Angeles Angels, 9-1, Sunday to complete a three-game sweep of their first-round AL playoff series.

The Red Sox open the AL championship series at Fenway Park on Friday night against either the Cleveland Indians or New York Yankees. Cleveland leads the series, 2-1.

Schilling isn’t the power pitcher he once was, but he handled the Angels with relative ease. Even when the Angels loaded the bases early, he escaped.

“His style has changed, but the results in the postseason remain the same. That’s a real tribute to him,” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said. “That’s what makes him special.”

Schilling raised his postseason record to 9-2 in 16 career starts while lowering his ERA to 1.93, having allowed only 25 earned runs in 1161â3 innings.

“This is not a solo thing. You’ve got to have a team to make it work. That performance today was as much about John Farrell and Jason Varitek as it was about anything, as far as I’m concerned, and as far as my results,” Schilling said, referring to Boston’s pitching coach and catcher, respectively.

“It’s been an incredibly arduous and long road that’s had its peaks and valleys, but John has stuck with me and worked as hard as I’ve ever had a pitching coach work to get me where I need to be,” Schilling said. “And Jason was flawless today.”

The Red Sox joined the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies in sweeping a first-round series this October – this is the first time since the current format began in 1995 that it’s happened.

Vladimir Guerrero and his Los Angeles teammates hit .192 as a team and scored a mere four runs in three games.

“Pitching is everything, and our guys were pitching,” Ramirez said. “In the playoffs, you got to have pitching. Schilling’s the man. He’s got a lot of spirit, he knows what he’s doing out there, and he came through for us today.”

The Angels have lost nine straight playoff games to the Red Sox and seven straight postseason games overall.

Boston beat the Angels in the last three games of the 1986 ALCS and swept them in the first round of the 2004 playoffs.

Schilling was working in the postseason for the first time since the 2004 World Series, when his bloody sock became the stuff of baseball lore.