Remember during rerun season a few years ago, one of the networks, instead of trying something different, since there are 300 million people in the country and we still can't come up with anything better than Two and A Half Men reruns during the summer, trotted out the ham-fisted, "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!" promotion? Well, Bartolo Colon may not be a loveable kid with a brilliant backstory like Jon Lester, or a scrappy 14-year-old with a bright future like Justin Masterson, but he's new to us! And he made his Sox debut with a win, pitching five solid innings as the Sox beat KC again, 6-3.

It wasn't a super-easy win to pick up. Jacoby Ellsbury led off with a homer to stake Colon to a 1-0 lead, but a pair of Royal runs in the early innings put him behind. So the boys rallied in the fifth. Varitek homered, then a bunch of hits by Boston and wild pitches by Kansas City left the score 5-2. The bullpen brigade (Hansen, Lopez, Delcarmen, Timlin) did their thing, and that was that. Six in a row, Daisuke on the hill this afternoon, then back out West.

The Celtics and their fans are very curious to see which Detroit team shows up at the Garden tonight. Will it be the experience, battle-tested, playoff-ready squad we expected? Or the hesitant, out-of-synch, overmatched team that was there for Game One? In other words, how healthy is Chauncey Billups? Meanwhile, Mitch Albom is a little nostalgic for the old rivalry, and the Celtics have announced they're cutting the fireworks from the pregame foolishness. Now all we need to cut is Lucky, the dancers, Lucky, the T-shirt gun, Lucky, the crowd noisemeter, Lucky, and Lucky. But that's just our opinion.

In other sports news around the globe, the Lakers came back from a huge deficit to take Game One of the Western Finals against the Spurs. We hate the Lakers, but we're gleefully anticipating how much San Antonio will complain and moan when they have a legitimate gripe against the refs in this series. St. Louis' Albert Pujols is apparently on a mission to kill everyone on the Padres one-by-one. And Manchester United won the prestigious European Champions League in Moscow, beating Chelsea 1-1 on a shootout. Why they can't have sudden death is beyond us.