Tonight the Boston Red Sox look to take a 2-0 advantage in their best-of-5 American League Division Series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Red Sox come in having won their last 10 playoff games against the Angels and will look to Daisuke Matsuzaka to do that.

Dice-K has made just one regular season start against the Halos and is 0-1 with a 10.80 ERA. He gave up 6 runs in 5 innings of work to take the loss back on July 28th. He has made 1 start against the Angels in the 2007 ALDS and he received a no decision then. He gave up 3 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks while striking out 3 in a game that was won on a Manny Ramirez walk-off home run.

Mike Scioscia tapped Ervin Santana to start Game 2 for the Angels. He has made 4 starts against the Red Sox in his career and is 1-2 with a 5.73 ERA. He has not faced the Red Sox this season.

There are a couple of changes to the Red Sox lineup (available after the jump). Mike Lowell and Jed Lowrie will start the night on the bench while Alex Cora will start at shortstop and Mark Kotsay gets the nod at first base with Kevin Youkilis moving over to third base.

“It was hard because of who he is,” Francona said. “Under a lot of circumstances, we’d just throw Mikey Lowell out there. I thought in this case, I needed to step in and kind of be the manager. And that was a hard one for me.

“I think it’s my responsibility to keep our team going in the right direction. I think this is the right thing to do. We’re not going to do this every game, either. I think it was the right move to make tonight.”

Francona, while trying to give away any strategy, said Lowell could pinch hit but will not be asked to play the field. “We’re not going to hurt him,” Francona said. “There might be a situation where we could hit him, if there’s not a force.”

-Francona had an inkling he would start Alex Cora over Jed Lowrie tonight even before the series began. Francona preferred Cora over Lowrie even before he knew their stats against Ervin Santana. He felt Cora matched up better against the style of pitching employed by Santana than Lowrie. When Francona looked at the numbers that Cora is 2 for 3 against Santana with a double and a triple, it simply heightened his comfort with the move.

“I kind of thought this would be a good time,” Francona said. “I hope it proves to be a really good move.”

And oh by the way, Josh Beckett is a go for Sunday’s Game 3.

Josh Beckett will start Game 3 without question. “He’s pitching,” Francona said. Francona was extremely satisfied with Beckett’s 67-pitch side session in the bullpen yesterday. While watching him yesterday from a distance, he liked Beckett’s body language and could hear the catcher’s mitt pop.

“That ball was loud,” Francona said.

Afterward, John Farrell told Francona, “This is not a guy that’s hurt.”

This was the plan all along. The Red Sox, Francona said, could have tried to pitch Beckett tonight. But they wanted to give him a full week of normal preparation so he could go into the game with his best stuff. That’s exactly what happened, Francona said.

Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe previews tonight’s game.

Dustin Pedroia has noticed that teams are starting to pitch around him. That’s a scary thought since Big Papi bats after him.

Adam Kilgore of the Boston Globe takes a look at Ervin Santana by the numbers.

Jim Rice takes a look at tonight’s game.

Jim Rice talks about his relationship with Johnny Pesky.

Jason Bay picked up an award from the Pittsburgh beat writers.

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe held a chat today over at Boston.com.

Continue reading →

This week:

The UConn Huskies look to go 6-0 for the first time in the FCS era as they travel to Chapel Hill to take on the North Carolina Tar Heels on Saturday night at 7 PM.

Here are the rosters for the Huskies and the Tar Heels.

The Line/Prediction:

According to USA Today Sports Odds, North Carolina is favored by 7 points. The over/under is 45.5 points. My prediction is UConn 27 UNC 24.

Tickets:

The game is listed as a sellout.

Getting To The Game:

Here is a weather report for the Chapel Hill area. Here are directions, a seating chart, parking information and stadium policies for Kenan Memorial Stadium.

BROADCAST INFORMATION

Television:

For the 3rd straight week, the Huskies will be on ESPN2. Bob Wischusen is on play-by-play while Brock Huard is the color announcer.

Radio:

For the 17th consecutive season, WTIC 1080-AM in Hartford serves as the flagship station for the UConn Radio Network. WTIC is the state’s only 50,000 watt signal and can be heard in 23 states and parts of Canada. Veteran UConn announcers Joe D’Ambrosio (play-by-play) and Wayne Norman (color commentary) return to call the action with Kevin Nathan on the sidelines.

The UConn pregame show begins 90 minutes prior to kickoff and is hosted by Bob Joyce. Nathan will also serve as a features producer for “UConn Football Magazine,” the halftime show, and also play host to a post-game call-in show after home games with Joyce filling that role for road contests. UConn football games are also broadcast over the internet at WTIC.com. For a full list of stations on the WTIC/UCONN radio network, click here.

North Carolina Radio: Tar Heel Sports Network, a division of Learfield Communications. Woody Durham (play-byplay), Rick Steinbacher (color analyst) and Lee Pace (sideline) provide the call. Jones Angell will host the broadcast.

Website: A live radio broadcast is available on UNC’s official athletic website, TarHeelBlue.com.

Continue reading →

The UConn Huskies football news will be upcoming shortly in the game preview post.

The biggest news out of UConn is the expulsion of Nate Miles from UConn. I have put my thoughts down on the situation here and here.

Men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun is very upset with Nate Miles.

Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant agrees with the decision to expel Miles.

The Hartford Courant put together a list of the disciplinary incidents for the UConn men’s basketball team since 1990.

David Gillett has a video of UConn men’s basketball recruit Alex Oriakhi.

The UConn women’s basketball team will play 9 national television games in the 2008-09 season.

Kick For Nick will be collecting soccer balls at tonight’s UConn men’s soccer game against West Virginia.

If you’re interested in going to the UConn men’s soccer game tonight, there are less than 500 tickets available. And if you have the FOX Soccer Channel, you can catch the game there live tonight.

I just wanted to start things off by wishing my parents a happy 38th wedding anniversary.

The Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim got the day off yesterday, the by-product of the Angels choosing the 8-day ALDS since they had the best record in the American League. For the Red Sox it was a day of questions that needed answers.

How will Josh Beckett feel during his side session in preparation for his start on Sunday? How will Mike Lowell’s ailing hip feel after playing a whole game on Wednesday night? How did J.D. Drew’s back feel after playing the full game on Wednesday night as well?

How will Josh Beckett feel during his side session in preparation for his start on Sunday?:

“It was a pretty aggressive side, but I think we probably needed to do that,” said Francona. “You’re always checking on health [with all players], but with Josh it’s important. He needs to know going into his start that he has what is available and what he needs to win. Nothing was cut short. His fastball had some finish to it and he threw all his pitches.”

How will Mike Lowell’s ailing hip feel after playing a whole game on Wednesday night?

“I don’t see any problems,” Lowell said. “I actually thought I was going to wake up really sore. I didn’t. So, I’m looking forward to a workout, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s game.

“I don’t think I put myself in position to just play one game. I don’t think that’s the right way to do it,” said Lowell. “I’m looking to play the whole postseason and be there every game.”

How did J.D. Drew’s back feel after playing the full game on Wednesday night as well?

Drew agreed. “That’s how I feel now,” he said. “Hopefully everything will continue to improve and you can build endurance and strength as the series goes along. We’ll see how it goes.”

As I said in the post about Beckett, yes he got through yesterday’s side session with flying colors. Now we need to wait and hold our collective breath to see how feels when he wakes up this morning. You can bet that if he’s feeling fine, Terry Francona will make the official announcement that Beckett will indeed start Game 3 on Sunday.

Obviously having both Lowell and Drew in the lineup makes the Red Sox a better team. But how much do you want to play them both especially when you’re still trying to win 10 more games.

Lots of links for you after the jump.

Continue reading →

According to UConn Huskies freshman forward Nate Miles legal guardian Sean Patterson, Miles will appeal the decision that was handed down by the University of Connecticut review board on Thursday afternoon. Miles was arrested last week after he violated a restraining order placed on him by a female student.

“I’m going to fight this thing, tooth and nail,” Patterson said. “We fought too hard to get him here. And I won’t stop at an appeal. The last I heard, this is the United States. If they want to do this, I’ll take every option for them to show me what he’s guilty of.”

Patterson also added that all the girl really wanted is an apology.

“From what I understand, the girl said she didn’t want anybody in trouble, she just wanted him to say ‘I’m sorry,'” Patterson said. “She admitted everything was consensual.”

“If he did it, I’d say ‘pack your bags, Nate, you screwed up.’ But he didn’t do it. All she wanted was an apology.”

Now let’s go back and take a look at what she said in the affidavit that brought the restraining order.

The affidavit reports multiple instances of Miles’ aggressive behavior, including digging his nails into her skin when he became angry and, on at least three occasions, making physical contact with her – one time allegedly slapping her and pushing her out of bed after she had hit him.

The statement also alleges that Miles became “extremely possessive,” and on one occasion tried to physically pressure her to have sex.

In the affidavit, the alleged victim states that on Sept. 14 she went to Miles’ dorm room and he began pressuring her for sex. At one time when she resisted, he allegedly “tapped” her in the face, according to the statement, and later dug his nails into her skin. When she hit him back, Miles “slapped me and pushed me off the bed,” the woman said in her statement.

She said she left the room and the argument continued for about 30 minutes in the hallway. Two days later, the alleged victim said she confronted Miles about the nail-digging and he said she was “weak,” according to the statement.

Yes I know he allegedly did this but be realistic here, if what she said is true in the affidavit, does she really just want an apology. If it were me or my daughter (if I had one), I’d want justice to be served and I’m sure anyone out there would feel the same way.

More people, particularly females, die from domestic abuse each year and most of the time it happens, it’s not the first time they’ve been abused. Domestic abuse is a serious issue folks. Yes there are other pressing issues out there but this is one that should not be overlooked.

It really makes me wonder if someone has gotten to her telling her that she should just want an apology so that Miles would not get kicked out of school and would still be able to be a member of the basketball team after a slap on the wrist suspension.  A lot of athletes get preferential treatment and it’s about time they make an example of one. What better time then to start now!

UConn Huskies freshman basketball player Nate Miles was expelled from school today after going in front of the review board according to his legal guardian Sean Patterson. Miles had violated a restraining order taken out by a female UConn student who had accused him of physical and sexual abuse.

“The first thing I would like to say is I would not be having this conversation if I felt Nate was guilty of things he is accused of because I have two daughters of my own,” Patterson said. “If there was one percent of doubt in my mind that Nate was guilty of assaulting a female, I wouldn’t have anything to say. … In my mind, he was railroaded today. It’s unfortunate for everyone involved. I want to add that I have no regrets about having a great relationship with Jim Calhoun and the basketball staff, and am glad to have had Nate be around such a person and staff. Any parent that is lucky enough to have their son play for those guys is a very fortunate person.”

Miles is still listed on the UConn men’s basketball roster but I expect that he won’t be there in the morning.

It’s a shame that Miles is wasting all his talent but the law is the law and the UConn review board came to the right decision in my opinion. The men’s program has had it’s share of troubles with the law in recent years and it might be time for Jim Calhoun and his staff to start looking more carefully at the character of the players they recruit. There’s a reason why Miles went to 5 different high schools.

He does have 5 business days to appeal the decision and judging from what Patterson said above, I’d have to think they may appeal the decision.