Baseball can be a funny game. A close call go your way or it can go against you. That particular play can change the course of an inning or a game. Well in the 4th, the Blue Jays had a close call go against them and it seemed to unnerve Blue Jays starter Roy “Doc” Halladay as he gave up 3 more runs in a 4-run 4th for the Sox. Josh Beckett went 8 strong innings for his league leading 17th win and Jonathan Papelbon finished it off in a 5-3 win.

It was a pitcher’s duel for the first 3 innings as Beckett and Halladay were throwing pretty well. John McDonald has the only hit for the Blue Jays along the way. The Sox had 3 hits, 1 in each inning but were unable to do anything with them other than a stolen base by the speedy Jacoby Ellsbury.

As stated in the opening, things took a turn in the 4th. Drew reached on a walk by Halladay and went to third on a Kevin Youkilis single. Halladay got the first out of the inning on a strikeout of Jason Varitek. Halladay then got Coco Crisp to hit into what appeared to be an inning-ending double play but Coco’s speed got him there about an 1/4 step ahead of the throw. This allowed Drew to score from third with the first run of the game. You could see how visibly pissed Halladay was. Ellsbury stepped up to the plate and took the first pitch he saw from Halladay and put into the bullpen for a 2-run homer and a 3-0 Sox lead. Julio Lugo followed that up with a double and came right around to score the 4th run of the inning as Dustin Pedroia hit a double of his own. Halladay got David Ortiz to ground out for the final out of the 4th.

With Beckett just cruising along, you had to think the 4-run lead was safe but it wasn’t. Aaron Hill reached on an infield single that Beckett kicked but Pedroia couldn’t get to in time. Zaun struck out swinging but then Beckett issued a walk to McDonald. Vernon Wells fouled out to Varitek behind the plate for the second out bringing up the hot-hitting Matt Stairs. Stairs took a fastball from Beckett and planted it into the seats for a 3-run homer, cutting the lead to one for the Sox. Beckett rebounded from the home run and Alex Rios to ground out. Beckett was a little bit pissed after the inning.

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Clay Buchholz will need to make some room in his trophy case. For his efforts on Saturday, Buchholz was named Bank of America Player of the Week for the week ending September 2nd.

In just his second MLB start, Buchholz threw a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles. He was the third person in history to throw a no-hitter in their first two starts.

Buchholz is the 6th Red Sox player to win a weekly award this season.

I haven’t done a poll in a while so I thought now would be the perfect time to do so.

Should the Red Sox re-sign Mike Lowell to a contract for 2008? I certainly hope they would. David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez have said publicly that they would like him back.

But with AROD more than likely hitting the free agent market and Larry Lucchino’s man love of AROD, would the Sox not consider this. Remember one thing, he was a throw-in aka salary dump in the Red Sox trade with the Florida Marlins for Josh Beckett.

My thoughts would be to re-sign Lowell for next season. Hopefully, he will give a hometown discount to come back to Boston. You can still go out and spend a billion dollars on AROD, just dump Julio Lugo and his contract to someone else and ask AROD to play shortstop again. Problem solved.

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Can someone in the Red Sox front office get Mike Lowell a 2008 contract please? Last night’s game started out as a laugher but a bad inning by Dice-K netted 8 runs for the Blue Jays. It’s not too often that you see a team score 8 runs in an inning and lose. Well that happened to the Blue Jays last night as the Sox were able to hold on for a 13-10 win. Lowell got the offense going early with a 3-run homer in the first and the Sox pounded the Jays early. The dynamic duo of rookies, Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury were the catalysts at the top of the order to help get the offense going. Tonight’s game features a heavyweight pitching matchup in Josh Beckett and Roy Halladay. But before they take the mound tonight, let’s take a look at the headlines from the Boston area and Toronto media.

Pitching takes a holiday [Boston Globe]

Red Sox outlast Jays [The Globe and Mail]

No Labor Day rest [Boston Herald]

Red Sox 13, Blue Jays 10 [Toronto Star]

Sox Nearly Blow Nine-Run Lead [Hartford Courant]

Crazy 8’s not enough for Jays [Toronto Sun]

Sox turn laugher into serious business [Pro Jo]

Lowell is on major roll for Red Sox [Boston Globe]

Reed gets a rest [Toronto Sun]

Dice makes own bad luck [Boston Herald]

No dropoff with Lowell batting cleanup [Pro Jo]

Rake it from the top [Boston Globe]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, Hartford Courant, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Toronto Sun websites.

If you were looking for a pitcher’s duel, then be glad you didn’t watch tonight’s Red Sox/Blue Jays game. However, if you were looking for a lot of runs scoring, this was the game to watch. In what started as a laugher for the Boston Red Sox, the Blue Jays made their comeback. However it wasn’t enough as the Red Sox fought and clawed for more runs on their way to a 13-10 victory in front of another sellout crowd at the Fens. The win by the Sox puts them 7 games up in the AL East as the Yanks lost this afternoon. The magic number for a playoff spot now stands at 18 games.

The team from North of the border got on the Green Monster scoreboard in the 1st inning. Daisuke Matsuzaka got the inning started by getting Vernon Wells to fly out. Matt Stairs, who it seemed like nobody got out tonight, hit a ground-rule double that bounced into the right field seats. He would come around to score as Alex Rios hit a single to right. Rios ended up going to second as J.D. Drew’s throw went over the cut-off man. Dice-K settled down though as he got Frank Thomas to fly out and Troy Glaus to strikeout swinging ending the inning.

Dice-K had been getting only 4.29 runs of support this season. Well, the Red Sox got 3 runs for him in the 1st inning. Jacoby Ellsbury, making the start in left tonight, led off with a single and went to second on a Dustin Pedroia single. Blue Jays starter Jesse Litsch got David Ortiz to strikeout. Mike Lowell followed that up with a 3-run homer into the Green Monstah seats for a 3-1 Red Sox lead. Litsch got out of the inning as Drew grounded out and Jason Varitek struck out swinging.

In the 3rd, the duo of Ellsbury and Pedroia reached base again to start the inning as they both had single. Ellsbury ended up at third and Pedroia went to second on the throw. Just another case of Ellsbury’s speed paying off. It paid off too as Big Papi hit a sacrifice fly to score Ellsbury easily as the Sox pushed their lead to 4-1. Pedroia tagged up and went to third on the play. Now in something you don’t see too often, Lowell was intentionally walked to face Drew. That moved didn’t work exactly as the Blue Jays planned out as Drew hit a sac fly scoring Pedroia for a 5-1 Sox lead. Litsch got out of the inning as Varitek grounded out to end his second inning of the game.

The 4th inning came for the Red Sox and this inning saw a crooked number put up on the Green Monster. Litsch started the inning retiring Coco on a fly out. He then gave up a double to Eric Hinske and an infield single to Julio Lugo. The single by Lugo chased Litsch from the game as the Jays brought in the lefty Joe Kennedy. Kennedy ended up walking Ellsbury to load up the bases for Pedroia who delivered two runs with a single for a 7-1 lead. Big Papi singled and that loaded up the bases again for Lowell. Kennedy got Lowell to hit a grounder to Glaus at third who did his best Bill Buckner impression as the ball went through his legs, allowing two more runs to score. Even though it was ruled an error, Lowell was given credit for an RBI. Drew brought in the 5th run of the inning with the Sox third sac fly of the night giving the Red Sox a commanding 10-1 lead or so we thought.

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The UCONN football team got the season started on the right note with a 45-14 win over Duke. However if you ordered the game through ACC Select, you missed the first half. It seems as though they weren’t prepared for the onslaught of UCONN fans who purchased the game. If you did purchase the game, you can get a refund of your money.

One of the sites I normally visit for UCONN football news is Ramblings from The Runway. It is a great blog written by a local sports writer here in New Haven, Chip Malafronte. I know Chip very well from his days of writing for the New Haven Ravens minor league baseball team while I worked there. The reason I mention this is, one, you should visit his site. Two, I came across a video of the highlights of the game from a commenter there, Jared Nuss. So courtesy of Chip via Jared is a highlight video of the game.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvGLtMN2TrU[/youtube]

Tina Charles was given clearance to participate in preseason conditioning starting tomorrow. Charles had offseason shoulder surgery to repair a problem from her high school days that bothered her at times last season.

Here is a pretty good article about Maya Moore having to prove herself all over again as she embarks on her freshman season at UCONN.

Sophomore Tina Charles and freshman Lorin Dixon have been friends for 7 years and played together in high school at Christ the King in New York. Together, they led Christ the King to 2 state championships.

The UCONN men’s basketball program got an unofficial visit from Assane Sene. Sene is a 7-footer from Senegal that is playing at the South Kent School. This is his thoughts on the girls at UCONN.

“And the pretty girls,” he said, laughing. “On the way in, I saw them on the campus. They have the prettiest girls here.”

Message to Jim Calhoun. Get this guy his scholarship before he visits UCLA or any Florida school.

And in case you wondering, “First Night” on October 12th is your first chance to see the men’s and women’s teams practice as they will do their annual thing with the crowd at Gampel Pavilion.