We don't expect miracles when guys come back from the DL. But yesterday, in his return to the mound, it seemed like a miracle each time Daisuke Matsuzaka got a Cardinal out. Which he only did three times before being sent to the showers, as the Cards rocked him for seven runs en route to a 9-3 pasting at Fenway.

Daisuke says he felt OK. Sure, he gave up a two-run homer to Aaron Miles, a two-run double to Jason LaRue, and loaded the bases to give Chris Smith a memorable Sox debut courtesy of a backbreaking Troy Glaus grand slam. Smith, to his credit, settled down once the bases were clear of Dice's Folly, which is good; the bullpen took another blow as Mike Timlin went on the DL.

Dice-K picked up his first loss of the season, and summed up his outing aptly: "I can't really think of anything that was good. Things were mostly bad today." The Sox' little offense came on a 2-run Alex Cora double, and J.D. Drew's 54th home run in June. That's going to be one sad day when Drew has to turn his calendar over in a week and a half. Jon Lester takes the hill today as the Sox try to avoid the St. Louis sweep.

If you haven't yet, you should check out Curt Schilling's post about knowing that the end sure seems to have arrived. The whole thing makes us a little verklempt, so it's probably for the best that we wrote our elegy for Schill back in October. We'll miss ya, Curt.

The Revolution stumbled for the first time in a while, dropping a 2-1 match at Real Salt Lake. Adam Cristman used his head to give N.E. a quick 1-0 lead, but Salt Lake solved Matt Reis twice to keep their home dominance alive.

The Bruins have been stockpiling scorers in the NHL Draft. They took tall, gangly Joe Colborne with their first pick (he'll be at the University of Denver this fall, hopefully eating many a buffalo burger), and added Maxime Sauve and Jamie Arnel as two more front-liners. If you watched the Bruins try to score last season, you know they probably went in the right direction here.