Bartolo Colon made his Boston Red Sox debut and went 5 innings and threw 74 pitches in what I’d say was a pretty good showing for a guy who hadn’t faced many major league hitters in the last two years. Colon was good enough to earn a victory for his efforts in the 6-3 win over the Kansas City Royals Wednesday night at Fenway Park. With the win the Sox have now won 6-in-a-row and have a 2 game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays.

Colon, gave up 2 runs, both earned, while yielding 6 hits, walking two and striking out 4. Colon, who threw consistently in the mid 90’s and topped out at 96, was picked up by the bullpen who had a good night as they allowed only 1 run and 3 base runners in the final four innings as Craig Hansen, Javier Lopez and Manny Delcarmen all pitched one scoreless inning. Mike Timlin gave up a two-out run in the 9^th.

The Kansas City pitching wasn’t as lucky as starter Brett Tomko gave up 5 runs, on 7 hits, a walk, two strike outs and gave up a pair of solo home runs, one to Jacoby Ellsbury to start the game and one to Jason Varitek in the 5^th.

The Sox got on the board first with the leadoff round tripper by Ellsbury. The homer was his fourth of the year.

Kansas City got even in the top of 3^rd when Jose Guillen singled to center to score Joey Gathright who had singled moved to second on a walk to Alex Gordon and came around on the base hit.

The Royals took a 2-1 in the top of the fifth with Gathright scoring his second run of the game after he reached with a bunt single. He moved to second on a base hit by David DeJesus and was sacrificed to third by Mark Grudzielanek. He would score on single by Gordon.

Boston regained the lead for Colon in the bottom the frame by grabbing four runs off of Tomko. With one out Varitek homered, his 6th, into the bullpen to tie the game 2-2. Coco Crisp would double to left center, move to third on a wild pitch and come around to give Boston a 3-2 lead on a Julio Lugo single. An Ellsbury single chased Tomko in favor of Ron Mahay who gave up a single to Dustin Pedroia to load the bases.

David Ortiz would fly out to center to score Lugo to make it 4-2 and move Ellsbury to third. With Manny Ramirez batting Mahay would throw the ball to screen and Ellsbury score to make it 5-2.

Boston tacked on a run in the 7^th when Ellsbury singled and stole second and scored on a Pedroia single to give the Sox a 6-2 lead.

The Boston bullpen was good allowing only 1 run on 1 hit and two walks in four innings. The Royals added on a late run in the ninth when a two out by Timlin to Gathright, who went to second on defensive indifference and scored his third run of the night on a DeJesus single before Grudzielanek flew out to end the game.

The two teams wrap up the four game series tomorrow with an afternoon finale at 1:35 p.m on NESN and along the Red Sox radio network.