Tonight marks the Boston Red Sox debut of Bartolo Colon who the Red Sox picked up as a free agent during spring training. Colon for the most part has been throwing the ball well down in Pawtucket and if not for a recent oblique injury, he may have been up a little bit earlier.

Brandon Moss is with the team today and will be heading out to Pawtucket on a rehab assignment that will start tomorrow.

Luis Tiant will be representing the Red Sox along with Laz Gutierrez at this year’s MLB Entry Draft in Orlando. The whole draft will be covered on MLB.com on June 5th and 6th and the first round of the draft plus the compensation picks will be shown on ESPN2.

Here are tonight’s starting lineups.

21-24

1. David DeJesus RF
2. Mark Grudzielanek 2B
3. Alex Gordon 3B
4. Jose Guillen LF
5. Mark Teahen 1B
6. Billy Butler DH
7. John Buck C
8. Tony Pena SS
9. Joey Gathright CF

– Brett Tomko SP

29-19

1. Jacoby Ellsbury RF
2. Dustin Pedroia 2B
3. David Ortiz DH
4. Manny Ramirez LF
5. Mike Lowell 3B
6. Kevin Youkilis 1B
7. Jason Varitek C
8. Coco Crisp CF
9. Julio Lugo SS

– Bartolo Colon SP

A look at the batter/pitcher matchups after the jump.

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Tune in tonight as bloggers Anthony of the Oriole Post and Jason of My Baseball Bias join me for the very popular hour long baseball show called, “The Hits Keep Coming” brought to you by MLBFrontOffice.com on Blog Talk Radio. Every week at 7PM Eastern Time (6PM Central/ 5PM Mountain/ 4PM Western/Pacific) we chat, analyze and comment about the world of Major League Baseball.

This week: We discuss Jon Lester’s no-hitter.

If you’d like to call in, the phone number is 718-664-6564 or you can send us an instant message if you use AOL IM at hitskeepcoming20.

Please join us at : http://blogtalkradio.com/oriolepost - 7 PM Eastern Time tonight!

Topics to be discussed this evening:

• Jon Lester’s no-hitter
• Yankees-Orioles last night and the unwritten rules of baseball
• Mike Piazza retires
• The Tigers still suck, Leyland rips team
• Any late breaking news that comes up

You can listen to last week’s show by going over to the sidebar on the left and look for the MLB Front Office section.

See you all tonight!!!

Here is the latest cover from Sports Illustrated.

to Sooze from Babes Love Baseball.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is on the record in today’s Boston Globe with his views on the NFL owners opting out of the current collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association.

He also spoke with the NFL Network and you can see his comments about the labor agreement.

The NFLPA chimed in as well with their view on what went down.

Destination Red Sox Nation is our look at how the minor league teams of the Boston Red Sox fare each night. Game story links and links to team stats and league standings are after the jump.

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A month ago, the Boston Red Sox called upon Justin Masterson to make a spot-start. He threw the ball well in that outing but was denied the win by the bullpen. Last night, Masterson was called upon to do the same thing.

This time the Red Sox bullpen made the score stand up as Masterson picked up his first career MLB win. For his efforts, he was rewarded with a trip to Pawtucket. He was going to be sent back to the minors so the Red Sox put him in Pawtucket rather than Portland where he had been pitching.

Terry Francona wanted to call Jon Lester’s dad after the no-hitter only to dial a wrong number. An error he discovered was his own.

“I must have wrote it down wrong the first time,” Francona said. “I was congratulating somebody that had no idea what I was talking about. I’m just jumping right into the conversation. I could tell, boy this guy’s not being very friendly.”

Pitching coach John Farrell had flashbacks of his own no-hit bid back in 1989 during Monday night’s game.

Yasuhiko Yabuta has been showing some improvement lately for the Royals.

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Internet Explorer users click here to watch

If you’re a Boston Red Sox fan, you’ll most definitely remember this clip from August of 2006. It was the night Denis Leary and Lenny Clarke were in the NESN booth with Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy and went on their Mel Gibson tirade.

Internet Explorers users click here to watch

During last night’s game, Clarke was back in the booth with the boys but this time was without Leary, who is off filming the very popular FX series “Rescue Me”. I’ll have to admit that Clarke is pretty damn funny and he even embarrassed NESN newcomer Heidi Watney among other things.

Here is part 1 of the clip. Part 2 is after the jump.

Internet Explorer users click here to watch

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Our friend Bruce Allen of the Boston Sports Media Watch has a good recap about how the press handled the information from Spygate and the opinions they formed on it, not only immediately but over time. He calls it the “most disgraceful episode in recent sports media history“.   Allen goes on to point out that some members of the media are still trying to get a handle on it and some to this day are still doing a poor job representing the situation.

I urge you to read Allen’s take when you can as he makes many of the some points we have made here at Sox & Dawgs and he even has some new ones.

It was your typical Detroit Pistons-Boston Celtics battle that reminded you of the late 80’s battles between the clubs. It was a hard fought, physical game that had a see-saw feel to it. And in the end the Boston Celtics won on the parquet 88-79 over the Detroit Piston to take a 1-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. The win was Boston’s 9^th in the playoffs at the TD BankNorth Garden.

It was an up and down first half as the Celtics led by after one quarter but the Pistons cut that lead to one at the half, 41-10.

The game was really won in the third quarter where the Green took over the game and out played the Pistons who just aren’t the same team without a totally healthy Chauncey Billups. The Celtics were able to ride Kevin Garnett on both ends of the floor as they built their lead to as many as ten through out the 3^rd and 4^th quarters.

The Celtics also got key contributions from the bench and second year point guard Rajon Rondo continued to show how much he has developed over the season. Boston played a high energy game and looked like the club that had a week off, not Detroit.

The Celtics were led by Garnett who had 26 points and 9 boards, Paul Pierce added 22 points, Rondo chipped in with 11 points and 7 assists and Kendrick Perkins hauled down 10 rebounds.

The Pistons were paced Tayshaun Prince who had 16 points, UConn’s Richard Hamilton had 15 points and Antonio McDyess had 14 points and 11 boards.

Game Two is Thursday at 8:30 p.m. at the TD BankNorth Garden before switching off to Detroit for Games Three and Four.

Last time Justin Masterson pitched for the Boston Red Sox, he was masterful on the mound but was denied the win by the bullpen. Tonight, Jonathan Papelbon made sure that Masterson would get his first MLB win after he helped escape a jam created by Hideki Okajima in the 8th and helped the Red Sox to a 2-1 win over the Kansas City Royals.

After the game, Masterson found out he was being promoted to Pawtucket. I say it as a promotion because he was going back to the minors after the game to make room for Bartolo Colon but instead of going back to Portland, he will be continuing his development at McCoy Stadium.

Masterson went 6 1/3 innings, gave up 3 hits, 1 run and 3 walks while striking out 5. The only Royal he had trouble with were Alex Gordon (3-for-3).

Javier Lopez worked a 1/3 of an inning as did Manny Delcarmen. Hideki Okajima worked for the first time in 5 days and wasn’t at his best even though he came out for a clean inning. He worked 2/3 of an inning giving up a hit and two walks while striking out 1. Papelbon worked 1 1/3 innings with 3 strikeouts for his 13th save.

Offensively, the Red Sox were paced by David Ortiz who went 2-for-4. Coco Crisp had a hit and an RBI while Kevin Youkilis and J.D. Drew had the other hits off of Royals starter Gil Meche, who threw the ball well too.

The local nine got all the runs they would need in the 2nd inning. After Meche struck out Mike Lowell to start the inning, Kevin Youkilis and J.D. Drew hit back-to-back singles. Jason Varitek then worked a walk off Meche to load up the bases who hit a sacrifice fly bringing in Youk to make 1-0 Red Sox. Crisp made it 2-0 with a ground rule double scoring Drew as Tek was forced to stop at third due to the ground rule double.

Masterson was never really in any trouble during the game. In the 1st inning, he allowed a double to Gordon. In the 3rd inning, he issued a walk to Mark Grudzielanek and single to Gordon but Gordon was thrown out trying to advance to second.

He walked Teahen in the 4th inning but got Billy Butler to ground into a double-play. He gave up another double to Gordon in the 6th inning but got Jose Guillen to strike out.

Masterson came back out for the 7th inning and walked Teahen. He got Butler to ground back to him as Teahen went to second. Terry Francona then came out to get Masterson who left to a standing ovation from the 37,486 fans at the Fens. Lopez came in and got Ross Gload to strikeout and he was replaced by Delcarmen who gave up a RBI single to John Buck to cut the lead to 2-1. He struck out pinch-hitter Alberto Callaspso to end the inning.

Okajima came out for the 8th inning and gave up a lead-off ground rule double to David DeJesus. He ended up at third when Grudzielanek grounded out. He then walked Gordon and struck out Guillen before issuing a walk to Teahen to load up the bases for Butler. Rather than have Okajima face him, Tito went to the pen for Papelbon who came into strike him out.

Bartolo Colon makes his long anticipated Red Sox debut tomorrow for the Red Sox where he will be opposed by former Florida Southern College (my college) pitcher Brett Tomko.

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One year ago the Boston Celtics were one the teams in the NBA Draft lottery hoping that the ping pong balls would fall in their favor and they’d have either the first or second pick and the opportunity to be in the Greg Oden-Kevin Durant sweepstakes if they so chose to be.

We all know what happened that night. The fate of the balls bounces funny and the Celtics who had the leagues worst record and the most ping pong balls in the drawing ended up with the 5^th pick overall.

On draft night they turned that pick, Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak into Ray Allen. Later that summer they traded nearly the rest of the roster to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett and what ensued was a NBA record turn around.

Tonight the front office of the Green probably watched the draft lottery with just a passing interest as they have bigger fish to fry as they hosted Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Detroit Pistons.

Miami, Seattle, Minnesota, Memphis (represented by former UConn standout Rudy Gay) and New York had the worst records and therefore had the most ping pong balls in the drawing. But there were 9 other non-playoff teams that got a crack at the lottery as well. They are Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Chicago, New Jersey, Indiana, Sacramento, Portland and Golden State.

Last year Portland won the lottery and chose Oden, Seattle was second and ended up taking Durant. Both teams are young with some good players and both could have ended up back in the top 5 again.

The top prospects in the draft are Michael Beasley from Kansas State and Memphis’ Derek Rose along with USC’s O.J. Mayo, Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless and Brook Lopez of Stanford.

So which teams came out on top?

1. Chicago
2. Miami
3. Minnesota
4. Seattle
5. Memphis
6. New York
7. LA Clippers
8. Milwaukee
9. Charlotte
10. New Jersey
11. Indiana
12. Sacramento
13. Portland
14. Golden State

Maybe Mike D’Antoni took the wrong job.

Here is a press release from the Boston Red Sox about tonight’s weather for the game:

The current weather forecast (provided by the Red Sox private weather service, Meteorlogix) in the vicinity of Fenway Park calls for the possibility of light rain showers during the late afternoon and evening hours.

The Fenway Park gates will open at the regularly scheduled time of 5:05 p.m., and the Red Sox expect that tonight’s 7:05 p.m. game with the Kansas City Royals will be played. However, the Red Sox would like to alert our fans to the current forecast.

This forecast is of course subject to change as the day progresses. Additional updates will be provided as necessary.

The NFL owners voted this morning at the Owner’s Meetings in Atlanta to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association. The move was expected and comes as no surprise.

The current agreement was initially negotiated in 1993 and must recently renewed in 2006 and was set to expire in 2012. The agreement included an option to shorten it by two seasons, which the owners voted unanimously to do today.

The two sides have until 2011 to reach a new agreement.

What this means is 2008 and 2009 will be played with a salary cap. If no new agreement is reached before 2010 that season will be played with no cap and the deal expires at the season’s end.

The owners key issue is that the teams are required to spend substantially more that half of their revenues on players costs. The owners feel the current CBA does not adequately recognize the costs of generating the revenue. Revenue of which the players receive the largest share and it doesn’t recognize that those costs have increased substantially in recent years.

Owners also have concerns about some rookies making more money than established stars as well as trying to recoup large signing bonuses given to players who breached their contracts.

Destination Red Sox Nation is our look at how the minor league teams of the Boston Red Sox fare each night. Game story links and links to team stats and league standings are after the jump.

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