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Football Season Ticket Offer Extended To Friday, May 8 [UConnHuskies.com]

CFL Draft Is Today. Who’s Next? [Desmond Conner – Hartford Courant]

UConn Extends Deadline To Buy Season Tickets [Hartford Courant]

Former UConn Cornerback Joins Patriots For Rookie Minicamp [Hartford Courant]

UConn product Brown makes good first impression [AP via Connecticut Post]

It won’t be easy turning this corner [Boston Globe]

Pats rookie Butler hoping to be handy [Metro West Daily News]

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A White House memo to Office of Homeland Huskies [John Altavilla – Hartford Courant]

UConn Men’s Basketball links

MVP Award: A.J. Price [UConn Huskies Basketball]

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Baseball: Huskies Take Down Notre Dame in Game One 8-5 [UConnHuskies.com]

Soccer siblings find homes with Quakes, Gold Pride [San Jose Mercury News]

“I Told That Kraut Down At The League Office…” [Thoughts From a Fat White Guy]

All it took was one swing of the bat from Evan Longoria to change this game as his grand slam in the 5th inning put the Tampa Bay Rays ahead for good as they went on to beat the Boston Red Sox 6-2 in front of 27,045 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL.

It’s the second straight loss for the Red Sox as they fall to 14-9 and out of first place as the Toronto Blue Jays won tonight. The Rays improve to 10-14 and have now climbed out of the basement in the AL East.

One bad inning for Justin Masterson was it all took for the Red Sox to lose tonight. Masterson went 6 innings, allowing 6 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks while striking out 6. Manny Delcarmen gave up a hit and a walk in his inning of work and the perfection of Ramon Ramirez continued as he worked a perfect 8th inning.

Andy Sonnanstine wasn’t spectacular for the Rays tonight but the Red Sox really couldn’t find a way to break through against him. He went 5 2/3 innings, giving up 2 runs on 8 hits and 4 walks while striking out 1. The Rays bullpen though was solid as the relievers combined to give up 1 hit and 2 walks in 3 1/3 innings.

Dustin Pedroia led the Red Sox with 3 hits on the evening. Kevin Youkilis brought his average back over .400 with two hits while J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek and Julio Lugo had the other hits with Drew adding an RBI. Jason Bay added an RBI on a bases loaded walk, one of two walks on the night for him.

The Red Sox picked up their first run in the 3rd inning.

Jacoby Ellsbury grounded out for the first out and Pedroia followed with a single.  After a David Ortiz fly out, Pedroia went to third on a Youkilis double. Sonnanstine then walked Drew and then Bay to force in Pedroia with the first Red Sox run of the night.  Sonnanstine got out of the inning when Lowell grounded into a fielder’s choice.

Sonnanstine got the first two outs on fly balls to left off the bats of Pedroia and Big Papi. Youk followed with a ground rule double to deep center and came in on a Drew single to make it 2-0 Red Sox. Bay popped out to second to end the inning.

Masterson had been cruising right along through the first four innings, then the Rays figured him out in the 5th.

Gabe Gross led off with a single and went to second on a walk to Akinori Iwamura. Both runners moved up 90 feet on a sacrifice bunt by Dioner Navarro. Masterson loaded up the bases when he plunked Jason Bartlett. B.J. Upton brought in Gross with a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 2-1. Given his success against Longoria, Masterson pitched around Carl Crawford but ended up walking to him to load the bases.

Masterson got ahead of Longoria 0-2 before he battled back to make ita 2-2 count. Longoria then got a pitch that he drove into the seats into left field for a grand slam and a 5-2 Rays lead. Carlos Peña followed with a home run into the right field seats to provide the final margin of 6-2.

At some point, the Red Sox will beat the Rays and may be even win a series. In order to salvage a split of this series, they’ll need a win first with Tim Wakefield on the mound tomorrow night and  gulp, Brad Penny on Sunday.. Wakefield will be opposed by Rays rookie Jeff Niemann while Penny gets James Shields. First pitch is scheuled for 7:08 PM tomorrow night and as always, the game will be on NESN.

Boston Red Sox @ Tampa Bay Rays 5.1.09 box score

After an embarrassing loss to the Tampa Bay Rays last night that saw Jonathan Van Every come in and pitch, the Boston Red Sox will look to put an end to their woes at Tropicana Field. In their last 11 regular season games there, they are 1-10.

Tonight’s game will start at 7:38 PM and will be covered on the NESN Plus channel as the Boston Bruins are on NESN tonight.  In the Tampa area, you can catch the game on Sun Sports. If the television isn’t your cup of tea, You can also catch the game on the radio on one of the many affiliates of the Red Sox Radio Network.

Making his third start since Daisuke Matsuzaka went on the disabled list, Justin Masterson will look to right the ship for Terry Francona and the Red Sox tonight. On the season, Masterson is 2-0 with a 2.70 ERA in 6 appearances. In his career against the Rays, he is 1-2 with a 5.28 in 6 appearances (2 starts) and is 0-2 with a 7.11 ERA in 2 games (1 start) at Tropicana Field.

Andy Sonnanstine is off to a rough start for the 2008 American League champs as he is 0-3 with a 7.78 ERA in 4 starts. In 6 career starts against the Red Sox, he is 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA.

According to the game notes, the Red Sox will be wearing their normal gray road uniforms tonight as the Rays will debuting their alternate tops which are blue.

On the injury front, it looks as though Daisuke Matsuzaka will make a rehab start for the Pawtucket Red Sox on Tuesday night. Rocco Baldelii could be joining him there as well.

Red Sox seek long outing from Masterson [RedSox.com]

Matsuzaka likely to pitch Tuesday in Pawtucket [Projo Sox Blog]

May Day Nuggetpalooza [Nuggetpalooza]

Why this bullpen is so stressed [Full Count]

Van Every Plays-of-the-Week [Hit and Run with Dan Roche]

Custom-made Red Sox motorcycle brings the awesome [Red Sox Monster]

Ill Remy flies home [Extra Bases]

Updates, updates, updates [Extra Bases]

Here are tonight’s starting lineups:

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

The Boston Red Sox ended the month of April with a loss they’d soon rather forget but still finish it up with a 14-8 record after a 2-6 start.Tropicana Field hasn’t been kind to the Red Sox as of late as they were 1-8 there in the regular season last year and got off to a bad start again this year.

For whatever reason, Matt Garza simply owns the Red Sox in a similar fashion to how the Yankees’ A.J. Burnett had for a while. As we saw last weekend, the Red Sox beat up Burnett but will have to wait to try again against Garza. It took an infield single by Jacoby Ellsbury to break up the perfect game in the 7th inning against Garza. And if he weren’t fast, he probably wouldn’t have beat it out.

It may be time to start worrying about Josh Beckett who was seemingly cruising through the first two innings last night. Then he gave up a couple of weak infield singles and then tried to be too careful against Carl Crawford (almost like a Dice-K careful). It seemed to me that mental part of the game got to Beckett last night and that’s what cause the downfall.

There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with Beckett so who knows. But one thing’s for certain, if he doesn’t start to resemble 2007 Beckett, it could be a long season for the Red Sox.

One thing to take note of tonight. Although the game starts at 7:38 PM, the NESN pre-game show will start at 6:00 PM due to the Boston Bruins playing. The Red Sox have also been relegated to the NESN Plus channel tonight so if you turn on NESN and find the Bruins, the Red Sox aren’t rained out. They’re just on NESN Plus. After all, they are playing in a dome.

Garza, Rays silence Sox [Boston Globe]

Matt Garza, Rays rip up Red Sox [Boston Herald]

Rays 13, Red Sox 0: A lost night in Tampa Bay [Providence Journal]

Former doghouse resident now a bulldog [Boston Globe]

Jonathan Van Every pitches in [Boston Herald]

Rays 13, Red Sox 0: Van Every takes the hill [Providence Journal]

Beckett can’t locate trouble [Boston Globe]

Big Papi glad to see poor April end [Boston Herald]

Rays enter the weekend last in the standings and first in frustration [Providence Journal]

Van Every pitches in – as a reliever [Boston Globe]

Josh Beckett, Jon Lester put stress on Red Sox bullpen [Boston Herald]

Van Every pitching in everywhere [RedSox.com]

Garza, Garza, Garza [Hit and Run with Dan Roche]

For rotation, it’s been a rough start[Tony Massarotti Blog]

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

And if you must see what the enemy papers are saying you can check out the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times websites.

UConn Football links

UConn And The NFL Draft [Thoughts From a Fat White Guy]

UConn Women’s Basketball links

UConn teams honored at Capitol [New London Day]

UConn Men’s Basketball links

Miles, Majok on underclassmen declaring list [New York Daily News]

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Softball: Huskies Fall To UMass 9-0 In Five [UConnHuskies.com]

Baseball: Huskies To Take on Notre Dame in BIG EAST Conference Series [UConnHuskies.com]