After losing two-of-three this weekend against the first place New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox welcome the Chicago White Sox to Fenway Park for four games and look to stay ahead in the wild card standings.

The game tonight will start at 7:10 PM EDT and will be televised in the Red Sox television market on NESN. If you live in the White Sox television market, you can catch the game on WCIU. And if the television isn’t your cup of tea, you can catch the game on one of the many affiliates of the Red Sox Radio Network.

Clay Buchholz has been throwing the ball well as of late for Terry Francona and the Red Sox. He’s  made seven starts this season and is 2-3 with a 3.99 ERA. He’s made one career start against White Sox and is 0-1 with a 15.00 ERA. In that start last year, he gave up five runs in three innings.

Jose Contreras has made 19 starts for the outspoken Ozzie Guillen and is 5-11 with a 5.13 ERA. He’s made 11 career appearances (10 starts) against the Red Sox and is 3-5 with a 8.82 ERA. In seven career games (six starts) at Fenway Park, he is 2-4 with a 10.26 ERA.

Boston gets first look at Chicago in ’09 [RedSox.com]

Report: Sox reject Wagner’s conditions [Extra Bases]

Globe 10.0: Would Wagner help the Sox bullpen? [Extra Bases]

Positive Matsuzaka report from Florida [Extra Bases]

Red Sox can’t ask for physical on Wagner [Full Count]

Wagner [Hit and Run with Dan Roche]

Stat of the day: August hiccups nothing new for Beckett [Projo Sox Blog]

John Smoltz says he was tipping his pitches [Projo Sox Blog]

Wagner pitches one scoreless inning, strikes out two [Projo Sox Blog]

Penny responds to shift in job title [Projo Sox Blog]

Francona disagrees with Smoltz [Projo Sox Blog]

Prepare for a wild finish [Tony Massarotti – Boston Globe]

Most Depressing Sox-Yanks Montage Ever [Center Field]

F You, John Smoltz [Center Field]

Here are the lineups for tonight’s game:

And here are how the hitters have fared against tonight’s starting pitchers:

The Boston Red Sox had the right pitcher on the mound last night to try and take the series from the New York Yankees and more importantly pick up another game in the standings. The Yankees did have their ace on the mound in CC Sabathia and at the end of the night, he was better than Josh Beckett in the Yanks 8-4 win.

We can pretty much rule out any chance of the Red Sox winning the AL East as they are 7.5 games out with 39 games to play. While it’s possible the Red Sox can overcome that deficit, it’s more realistic that they are playing for the wild card this year.

In the wild card standings, the Red Sox hold a 1-game lead over the Texas Rangers who beat the Tampa Bay Rays yesterday. The Rays sit just three games behind the Red Sox and the team still have six games left against each other (three in Boston, three in Tampa).

Beckett had a rough time in his last outing and that carried over into last night’s game as well as the first pitch he threw to Derek Jeter went out of the park. The same thing happened in the second inning when Hideki Matsui led off the inning with a solo home run as well. All told last night, Beckett gave up a career-high five home runs.

The ironic thing about the weekend series is that the former Marlins teammates, Brad Penny, AJ Burnett and Beckett, all had a tough go of things. I’m sure that’s purely coincidence though.

Beckett did settle down in the later innings but did end up giving up a second home run to Matsui. But for Beckett it was a little too late.

“These are humbling deals,’’ Beckett said. “That was a good [butt]-whooping I got out there. That’s the only words I got to sum it up.

“I’m still confident in the guys. Today was on me. The guys did what they were supposed to do. They went out there and got, I think, 10 hits. You can’t expect them to score 11 runs every time, which was basically what it would have taken for us to win, given the way I pitched.’’

Many thought it was the absence of pitching coach John Farrell and Victor Martinez catching him in his last outing but last night Jason Varitek was behind the plate and we saw the same result. So for all those theory conspiractists out there, you can put that one to rest. And let’s not forget that V-Mart has caught the past two Cy Young winners in Sabathia and Cliff Lee so he’s obviously doing something right behind the plate.

Continue reading →

UConn Football links

How Do Huskies Measure Up Against UNC? [Desmond Conner – Hartford Courant]

Is This The Year UConn Finally Beats WVa.? [Desmond Conner – Hartford Courant]

Two Of The Best Guys I Know [Thoughts From a Fat White Guy]

R&R Sunday, Blitzing Monday [Hartford Courant]

UConn Women’s Basketball links

Montgomery Enjoys Life As A Pro [Hartford Courant]

After paying back the New York Yankees yesterday afternoon with a rout of their own, the Boston Red Sox look to take the rubber game tonight at Fenway Park.

The game tonight will start at 8:05 PM EDT and will be televised to national audience on ESPN. And if the television isn’t your cup of tea, you can catch the game on one of the many affiliates of the Red Sox Radio Network.

Josh Beckett looks to rebound after an un-Beckett like performance his last time out. Beckett’s made 24 starts this season and is 14-4 with a 3.38 ERA. He’s made four starts against the Yankees this season and is 2-0 with a 4.12 ERA. He’s made 16 career starts against the Yankees and is 9-4 with a 5.03 ERA.

CC Sabathia makes his 27th start this season and is 14-7 with a 3.58 ERA. He’s faced the Red Sox twice this season and is 1-1 with a 2.45 ERA. In one start at Fenway this season, he took the loss as he allowed 4 runs in 7 innings back on June 11th. He’s made 9 career starts against the Red Sox and is 3-5 with a 3.57 ERA. Four of those starts have come at the Fens where he is 1-2 with a 3.00 ERA.

Lowrie hoping he’ll play this year [Extra Bases]

Aces up [Extra Bases]

some notes [Extra Bases]

Harper in the house [Extra Bases]

Ortiz sounds off on steroids, batting seventh [Full Count]

Papelbon clears air on Wagner [Full Count]

Lowrie: ‘I’ve Been Treading Water’ [NESN.com]

Martinez will finally get to catch Wakefield [Projo Sox Blog]

Tazawa stays in the rotation, Penny is out [Projo Sox Blog]

Stronger, leaner Matsuzaka makes rehab start Monday [Projo Sox Blog]

Red Sox weekly recap (Week 20) [Batter-up with Bruno]

Here are the lineups for tonight’s game:

And here are how the hitters have fared against tonight’s starting pitchers:

It was an ugly night for baseball for the Boston Red Sox on Friday night at Fenway Park. On Saturday afternoon at the Fens, it was a chance to pay the New York Yankees back.

The Red Sox did that and more as they were able to get to A.J. Burnett for seven runs in the first two innings on Saturday. Couple that with a fine pitching performance from young Japanese rookie Junichi Tazawa and two home runs and 6 RBIs from Kevin Youkilis and you have a 14-1 win for the Boston Red Sox.

Their lead now stands at two games in the wild card over the Texas Rangers, who lost to the Tampa Bay Rays. By the way, the Rays are just three games back as well. The Red Sox are still 6.5 games out of first in the AL East.

Tazawa was outstanding on the bump. While he did find himself in trouble at times, he was able to make the pitch he needed to in order to get himself out of that trouble. Tazawa was able to dominate the Yankees hitters because he established his breaking stuff early on in the count. He also mixed his pitches and moved them all over the plate to keep the hitters off balance. He even got a little revenge on Alex Rodriguez as he made him look silly on a nasty curveball for a strikeout to end the third inning.

With Terry Francona replacing Brad Penny in the rotation with Tim Wakefield, Tazawa needed to shine on Saturday afternoon. He passed that test with flying colors and should get another start five days from now. If he doesn’t I’d be quite shocked given the fact that Penny has one win in his last eleven starts.

With Wakefield returning to the rotation on Wednesday and George Kottaras still on the disabled list, everyone is wondering who will catch him. According to Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe, who answered a tweet from me, said that Victor Martinez will catch him.

It will be Victor Martinez. He’s worked a bit with Wake on catching the knuckler, including in Toronto.

That definitely should be an interesting game to watch on Wednesday night with VMart catching the knuckleball for the first time in a game.

The Red Sox offense is definitely firing on all cylinders right now. Youkilis was the main provider of the offense yesterday with a two home run effort and 6 runs batted in. David Ortiz hit his 20th home run of the season. It’s the seventh straight season in which Big Papi has hit 20 home runs in a Red Sox uniform. Alex Gonzalez added a solo shot to the cause as well.

Of the fourteen runs the Red Sox scored on Saturday afternoon, thirteen of them came with two outs. The only run that wasn’t scored with two outs was the home run by Gonzalez with one out in the second inning. The 13 runs with two outs ties the Phillies for the most runs scored with two outs this season.

It should be a great pitching matchup tonight as two heavyweights get ready to battle on the Fenway Park mound. The national television audience on ESPN will see Josh Beckett and C.C. Sabathia duke it out.

Before we get to the links, I’d like to pass on my condolences to the family and friends of Greg Montalbano. He passed away yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer. Montalbano was a former Red Sox prospect.

Continue reading →

UConn Football links

Husky Tracks: Looking Back And Ahead At UConn Football Practice [Hartford Courant]

UConn linebacker Moore going from lucky to good [New Haven Register]

UConn Women’s Basketball links

Montgomery’s On Her Way, But Whalen’s Already There [New London Day]

U.S. Team Assistants No Simple Decision [Hartford Courant]

Other UConn related links

Multimedia rights deal helps UConn keep ahead of money issues [Connecticut Post]

Men’s Soccer Ends in 0-0 Tie against Hartwick in First Scrimmage of the Season [UConnHuskies.com]