Josh Beckett looks to propel the Red Sox into 1st place tonight.

The battle at the Trop continues tonight as the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays are now tied for first place in the AL East. Only one team can end up in first place after tonight’s game so let’s hope it’s Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox.

Beckett is making his third start since returning from the disabled list and faced the Rays his last time out. He gave up just 1 run while striking out 7 in what turned out to be a Rays win in 14 innings. This will be his 5th start against the Rays this season and he is 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA. He is 1-2 with a 2.25 ERA in 3 career starts at the Trop and is 5-3 with a 3.38 ERA in 9 starts for his career against them.

The Rays will send Andy Sonnanstine to the mound tonight. Sonnanstine was on the hill last against the Red Sox and was the starter against Beckett. Sonnanstine also gave up 1 run during that game. In 5 career starts against the Red Sox he is 1-1 with a 6.59 ERA.

Good news for Red Sox fans as John Henry told CHB in an email today that Theo Epstein will be with the Red Sox for a little while longer. How much longer is anyone’s guess as the terms of the contract weren’t disclosed.

‘We are all on the same page with regard to our vision for the organization,” Henry wrote in an e-mail this afternoon. “The negotiations were pleasant and were all about rewarding Theo for the great, great job he has done in bringing two world championships to the Red Sox. We look forward to the difficult task of trying to win a third.”

Henry clarified in a later e-mail that while the main negotiations were complete and “lawyers are handling the details,” the sides haven’t settled all matters.

The Red Sox will be without the services of Jason Bay for the next two games as he has left the team to be with his wife who is set to deliver their baby any minute now.

James Stewart of WEEI has a look at the numbers of Manny Ramirez and Bay since the trade happened.

Adam Kilgore has a good piece about appreciating Mike Timlin.

17,695 is the number of pitches Timlin has thrown in his career.

Local Boston songwriter Desmond Reed wrote 10 songs about the 2008 Red Sox.

Alex Speier of WEEI tells us Jacoby Ellsbury was almost a Tampa Bay Devil Ray back when they had the devil in their name.

Gary Marbry of WEEI has some Tuesday “tied for first” nuggets.

For the Providence area Red Sox fans, the trophy will be there at McFadden’s Wednesday night.

Lineups and batter/pitcher matchups after the jump.

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My apologies for the lateness of the UConn Huskies roundup today. I had some things to take care of this morning.

Yesterday was the Big East Conference teleconference and here are notes from Chip Malafronte, Desmond Conner, Neill Ostrout and Joe Perez.

Good news for the UConn men’s basketball team. Senior guard A.J. Price has been cleared for full-contact workouts just 6 months after his ACL surgery.

David Gillett has video of Ben Gordon giving some shoutouts.

UConn men’s soccer player Oscar Castillo was named the Big East Defensive Player of the Week.

Let’s start the Flop at the Trop with a musical montage from before and after the game from the fine musical montage makers at NESN.

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I am beginning to wonder if the Boston Red Sox exercised their demons they have at Tropicana Field by chopping the head off of a live chicken like they wanted to in Bull Durham to get the hex off of Jose’s glove. Well whatever they did it worked as the Red Sox just obliterated Scott Kazmir and the Tampa Bay Rays.

Kazmir had a rough start to the game throwing 9 straight balls and then giving up back-to-back home runs to give the Red Sox a 4-0 lead before recording an out. It didn’t get any better for him later on as he was charged with the 5 of the 7 runs the Red Sox put up in the 4th inning. The latter part of the game resembled a spring training game as both teams got some of their September callups into the game.

Has anyone ever seen a pitcher with a 17-2 record only throw 5 innings? I honestly don’t know how Daisuke Matsuzaka does it and I’m not sure I want to know. Seriously though, does he like to pitch with men on base or something?

It was funny before the game when Tom Caron told Jerry Remy to expect 250 pitches from both Kazmir and Dice-K with RemDawg yelling “nooooooooo”. It was pretty close to that for the game and Dice-K had 101 pitches in his 5 innings. The scary part though is the fact he only gave up 1 run on 3 hits and 4 walks. He is truly earning his “Houdini” nickname.

So after 60 days of looking up at the Rays in the AL East, the Red Sox are now tied for first place and with another win in the last two games of this series, they can leave Tampa tied for first. Obviously 2 wins means they leave in first 2 games up or two losses means they leave 2 games down. I’m hoping for at least 1 more win and would very happy with 2 more before heading to Toronto for the weekend.

Plenty more Red Sox and Rays news after the jump.

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The Boston Red Sox entered tonight’s game at Tropicana Field winless in 6 games this season. That all changed early on as they took advantage of an ineffective Scott Kazmir and pounded the Rays 13-5 in front of 29,772. The win for the Red Sox moves them into a tie for 1st place with the Rays.

It is the first time the Red Sox have been in first place since July 17th, a span of 60 days. The win also gives the Red Sox and Rays a 7 game lead in the wild card standings over the Twins. The Red Sox magic number for a playoff spot is now at 6 games.

The story of the game was the long ball with both teams combining for 9 home runs (6 for the Red Sox, 3 for the Rays). Six different players for the Red Sox hit home runs. They were David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek, Kevin Youkilis, Jason Bay and Jacoby Ellsbury.

Ortiz had 2 hits with 4 RBI, Youk had 2 hits and 3 RBI and Ellsbury had 2 hits and 1 RBI. The only member of the starting 9 without a hit was Jed Lowrie, although he reached base 3 times via the walk as did Coco Crisp.

Daisuke Matsuzaka picked his 17th win of the season, which is most for a Japanese-born pitcher in MLB.

Daisuke Matsuzaka started for the Red Sox tonight and was his usual effectively wild self. He threw 101 pitches in 5 innings of work, allowing 1 run on 3 hits and 4 walks while striking out 7 to pick up his 17th win of the season. The 17 wins in a season are the most for a Japanese-born pitcher in MLB.

Chris Smith worked 2 innings, giving up 4 runs on 4 hits with 3 strikeouts. Mike Timlin and David Pauley each went an inning allowing a walk each while Pauley also had a strikeout.

Either something was wrong with Kazmir tonight or he was just that bad.

The first 9 pitches he threw were balls which included walks to Coco and Dustin Pedroia. His 11th pitch of the game was jacked out of the park by Big Papi for a 3-run homer to put the visiting nine up 3-0. After a Youkilis fly out, Lowell took the 15th pitch from Kazmir and smoked a home run to left for a 4-0 lead.  Kazmir then got Bay to strike out and Lowrie to fly out but the damage had been done.

Kazmir hit Varitek to start the 2nd inning and warnings were issued to both teams. Kazmir actually settled in though and didn’t give up any runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings.

The Rays got their first run of the night in the 3rd inning when Akinori Iwamura hit a line drive home run to left field to cut the lead to 4-1.

The 4th inning is probably one the Kazmir and the Rays would like to delete from their memory banks.

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Daisuke Matsuzaka looks to help the Red Sox get back into 1st place as he goes for win #17.

I can tell you that when I looked at the schedule when it came out last year that I didn’t figure that this series would be an important one as it is now. I figured the Boston Red Sox would have to win the games to stay with or maintain a lead over the New York Yankees, not play catchup to the Tampa Bay Rays.

But alas, here we are on September 15th with just 13 games left to play in the season trailing the Rays by one game in the AL East while the Yankees are making tee times and vacation plans.

The Red Sox had a good chance to take over first place when the Rays came to town but the Sox lost 2-of-3 to fall 2 ½ games out. The Rays also had come into that series not having won a game at Fenway Park before taking the final 2 games. We can only hope that the Red Sox can do the same as they are winless (0-6) at Tropicana Field this year.

Terry Francona entrusts Daisuke “Houdini” Matsuzaka to work his magic tonight against the Rays lineup. Dice-K has faced the Rays twice this season and has no record with a 3.60 ERA. In his career, he is 1-3 with a 3.98 ERA in 7 games started. He is also 0-2 with a 3.75 ERA in 4 career games started at Tropicana Field.

Joe Maddon counters with young lefty Scott Kazmir to quiet the Red Sox bats and keep his young team on top in the AL East. Kazmir is making his 21st career start against the Red Sox and is 6-6 with a 3.02 ERA. He has faced the Red Sox 3 times this season and is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA.

J.D. Drew will be back with the Red Sox tomorrow but after getting another shot on Friday, he most likely won’t be ready to play until this Friday at the earliest. To me, as long as the Red Sox are winning, let him take his time to be healthy for the playoffs.

Alex Speier tells us they will be giving away cowbells at Wednesday night’s game.

If you missed the Red Sox rookies as characters from “High School Musical”, you can check out the videos by pressing the SAP button on your remote.

Lineups and batter/pitcher matchups after the jump.

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