Friday night is Red Sox Game Night at Showcase Cinema’s through out the Southern New England region. On Friday the Red Sox will entertain the New York Yankees at Fenway Park and you can catch all the NESN action on the big screen in Hi Def and Surround Sound at a participating Showcase Cinema.

Tickets cost between $7 and $10 and most locations also sell baseball type food fare including beer.

There is no truth to the rumor that the game will be shown on Tom Caron’s forehead.

Jon Lester makes his final start in front of the Fenway faithful.

The Boston Red Sox take the field tonight with their very slim AL East title hopes alive as the Tampa Bay Rays lost this afternoon in Detroit. Essentially to win the division, the Red Sox must win their last 4 games while the Rays lose their last 3. No easy feat since it requires help plus the Boston area weather forecast for tomorrow and the next few days doesn’t seem like it wants to cooperate and could cancel a game or two (pure speculation on my part. We all know how accurate weather forecasters are).

Jon Lester makes a tuneup start for the Red Sox and my best guess tells me he won’t be overused tonight as Terry Francona makes preparations for the playoffs. Lester has faced the Cleveland Indians once this season where he gave up 4 runs in 4 1/3 innings back on April 14th. He has faced the Indians 3 times in his career and is 1-0 with a 4.96 ERA.

Jeremy Sowers hopes to have a good start tonight for the Indians and put himself on the radar for a spot in the 2009 Indians rotation. He has made 2 starts against the Red Sox in his career and is 0-1 with a 5.06 ERA.

The Red Sox made two moves today purchasing the contract of PawSox shortstop Gil Velazquez and they also placed Bartolo Colon on the restricted list. Putting Colon on the restricted list allowed the Red Sox to put Velazquez on the 40-man roster.

Our friend Dan over at Red Sox Monster says Lil Wayne is a Red Sox fan, sorta.

Michael Vega of the Boston Globe has some news and notes on Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew among other things.

Lineups and batter/pitcher matchups after the jump.

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According to Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant, UConn men’s basketball freshman Nate Miles is due in court next Tuesday after a violation of a restraining order.

The arrest log of the UConn Police Department says that Miles was served with a restraining order on Sept. 22, but violated it by placing a phone call to the protected party that day. The protected party is not named.

That, according to the report, was in direct violation of the following restraining order language: “Respondent shall refrain from having any contact in any manner with the protected person.”

UConn’s only comment was essentially no comment as is their policy.

This is definitely not a good way for Miles to impress Jim Calhoun and his teammates. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding maybe it wasn’t. Either way, this doesn’t bode well for Miles.

This week:

The UConn Huskies travel to Louisville to take on the Cardinals in their second straight Friday night game. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 PM.

Here are the rosters for the Huskies and the Cardinals.

The Line/Prediction:

According to USA Today Sports odds, the Louisville Cardinals are favored by 3.5 points and the over/under is 50 points. Take the points, UConn wins 27-21.

Tickets:

At the time of this post, tickets are still available to the game. You can purchase them through Ticketmaster.

Getting To The Game:

Here is a weather report for the Louisville area. Here are driving directions, stadium information and policies, parking tips and a seating chart for Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.

BROADCAST INFORMATION

Television:

For the second-straight week, UConn will be part of the ESPN2 Friday night package. Bob Wischusen is on play-by-play while Brock Huard is the color announcer with Rob Stone on the sidelines.

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.

Louisville Radio: Here is a list of the University of Louisville Radio Network affiliates. All Louisville football  games are available on Sirius Satellite Radio. This week’s game in on Channel 126.

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No UConn Huskies football news in this post as that will be coming up shortly in the game preview.

UConn women’s basketball All-American Maya Moore had no basketball obligations this summer.

David Borges of the New Haven Register takes a look at the depth and talent the UConn men’s basketball team has at each position.

David Gillett has a look at Rudy Gay of the Memphis Grizzlies.

While the football game is going on Friday night, the UConn men’s soccer team will be taking on their biggest rival in the St. John’s Red Storm.

The UConn women’s soccer team is ready for the game tonight against the South Florida Bulls.

There’s only one way to describe last night’s game and pretty isn’t the word. Last night’s game was ugly. Ugly in the sense that Paul Byrd gave up 11 hits in 5 innings of work. Ugly in the sense Fausto Carmona probably should have chosen to serve his suspension rather than get shellacked for 4 runs in the 1st inning. Those 4 runs ended his night after throwing 51 pitches. Lastly, it was ugly in the sense the Red Sox defense was less than spectacular last night.

With the Tampa Bay Rays winning last night and cutting their magic number to 1 to win the AL East, I would highly expect Terry Francona to start resting guys a little bit and setting up the rotation by limiting the innings of the starters.

Depending on who ends up with the best record in the AL, the Red Sox could find themselves playing in the 8 day ALDS instead of the 7 day ALDS. If it’s the latter, the Red Sox will need to have 4 starting pitchers and essentially right now it’s toss up between Tim Wakefield and Byrd. Neither one did anything to show us anything in their last starts. Byrd though is okay with not making the postseason roster if it comes down to it.

Whatever Terry (Francona) decides with me is fine with me. I’m glad that someone took a chance on me. I was having a tough year.

Francona has said it really doesn’t matter to him which series they are in although I think he’s hoping they are in the 8 day series so he can use Josh Beckett and Jon Lester twice if need be against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, their likely opponent.

It appears the Red Sox celebration after the game on Tuesday night didn’t end in the clubhouse. If you’ve got pictures of the party, send them along to us to post.

Joe Zarbano of WEEI.com thinks Jonathan Papelbon is a 27-year old man-child.

J.D. Drew was back in the lineup last night and said he definitely could tell he hadn’t been out there in a while.

It went pretty well. I got a little stiff and my legs got a little wobbly after not running around like that for a while. I was on base, had to sprint a few times. I could tell it had been a while.

After injuring his calf on Tuesday night, Indians third baseman Andy Marte is done for the season.

Terry Francona is focusing on having his best lineup for the playoffs. He will also have some decisions to make about the roster as well.

Francona also likes the 2008 Red Sox bullpen better than the 2007 bullpen.

In case you missed it, here’s a look at Terry Francona’s chat over at the NESN Playground.

Before the game yesterday, the Red Sox held a team meeting to go over playoff shares.

Lastly, Gary Marbry of WEEI.com has some bullpen nuggets.

For more slices of Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hartford Courant and Providence Journal websites.

And if you must see what the enemy papers are saying, you can check out The Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon Journal websites.