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The Boston Red Sox believe they can win the World Series again this year, despite a four game deficit to the Tampa Bay Rays and a slim lead in the AL Wild Card race. Hence, their trade for Mark Kotsay.

Of course, part of those postseason plans probably don't include not having Josh Beckett. Which might be a legitimate scenario, as the Sawx ace didn't receive any good injury news today.

Following manager Terry Francona's postgame press conference in the wake of a 3-2 Sox loss at Yankee Stadium, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein announced today that Josh Beckett has been scratched from tomorrow's scheduled start in order to visit with renowned specialist James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama.

Translation: Start worrying again.

Uh yeah. That seems like a safe prognostication. Epstein mentioned something about Beckett's elbow not being "100%", which also seems reasonable, since he's headed to see Andrews.

I know we've all seen plenty of heroically styled September and October behavior from the Red Sox over the past few years, but in all honesty, if the Sox lose Beckett for the season -- not too far-fetched an idea with DJA involved -- I think we can all go ahead and call of any more Beantown celebrations.

Ana Ivanovic, the No. 1 player in the world, is out of the U.S. Open before the first weekend.

The 25-year-old Coin is ranked 188th in the world and has never played in a Grand Slam before, and this is already being called the biggest upset in U.S. Open history. Coin broke Ivanovic three times in a match that lasted nearly two hours, finally winning 6-3 4-6 6-3.

The Serbian Ivanovic looked like the next big thing in tennis when she won the French Open this year, but she has been disappointing since. She lost in the third round at Wimbledon, withdrew from the Olympics with a thumb injury and had a mediocre showing in a three-set win over Vera Dushevina on Tuesday. Now she's out of the U.S. Open.

Coin, who is from France but played NCAA tennis at Clemson, will play Amelie Mauresmo in the third round.

Here's a shocker for the end of the work day: Just a couple of hours after Ottawa Senators GM Bryan Murray announced that the team had been unable to come to an agreement on a new contract with restricted free agent defenseman Andrej Meszaros, Adam Proteau of The Hockey News is reporting that Meszaros has signed an offer sheet with an unidentified NHL team.

Apparently, it's a multi-year deal with an average salary exceeding $5 million per season. As to who it might be, I guess it's time to get out your spreadsheets and start guessing. Our colleague James Mirtle lists possible destinations as St. Louis, Toronto, Montreal, Columbus, the Islanders, Phoenix and Atlanta. Mirtle also cites LA as a possible destination thanks to all their cap room, however, they would need to reacquire a third round draft pick in order to make it happen.

Losing Meszaros and Wade Redden in the same offseason couldn't have been part of the plan for Murray and the rest of the Ottawa front office. A defense that was deep and solid just two seasons ago during a run to the Finals now looks horribly vulnerable. What's worse, while the Sens might be thin on the blue line, they're still loaded up front, which makes taking the draft picks and embarking on a rebuild program something of a non-starter.

If I'm Sens owner Eugene Melnyk, I'm getting ready to ask Murray some very difficult questions about the future of the franchise.

I guarantee, this will be the best nine-minute long rap video dedicated to the 1989 NBA All-Star Game you'll see all week! (And, I'm guessing, the only time Mark Eaton and Mark Price were ever name-checked in a rap lyric, which makes it both historical and hysterical.) What makes this especially awesome is that this was apparently from the actual telecast and not just something hacked together by a YouTube wizard decades later. Well done, 1980s television execs, well done.

Update: Actually, "well done, Ultramagnetic MC's." Chest bump to Shoals for ID'ing the men behind the mic.

Score that two former USC players running smack ahead of the Ohio State game. Everyone's favorite not-so-slightly doughy back made sure to let everyone know what he thinks of Ohio State before ESPN cameras. There's some context of course, as it was a friendly -- if random -- comment as the Jim Rome show followed Titans lineman Kevin Mawae for a feature.

Audio

Sayeth Rome: "White's comment was a complete non sequitur"

The segment will broadcast Friday on "Rome Is Burning" (4:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN), the game will be played Sept. 13th in Los Angeles. The Trojans would probably be heavy favorites with White, but the continued noise coming from former USC players can only have the effect of working against USC in Las Vegas.

(Via: Sports by Brooks)

Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya made it official today that they're going to fight on December 6 in what will be by far the biggest boxing match of the year.

And in a very good sign for the future of boxing, people are already talking about what the winner will do next, especially after De La Hoya's surprise comments today that he might not retire after this fight after all.

Here's my modest proposal: The winner needs to fight Floyd Mayweather.

Yes, Mayweather says he's retired, but I don't believe him. I believe that he'll be seduced by the $30 million or so that he'd likely make for fighting De La Hoya a second time, if De La Hoya wins. And if Pacquiao wins, Mayweather will be motivated by hearing everyone crown Pacquaio as the pound-for-pound king. (And although he wouldn't make as much money fighting Pacquiao than he would fighting De La Hoya, he'd still get an eight-figure payday out of that fight.)

De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao is a great fight on its own terms, but 2009 will have an even bigger one if Mayweather ends his retirement and fights the winner.

History is being made tonight, in many ways. Us college football fans are sometimes accused of wearing blinders and tonight is no different. It's opening night for college football 2008 and a certain Senator from Illinois is formally set to accept his party's nomination for President on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" address.

We can't compete.

However, we've got a job to do and its a job we love on a very big night for us as well. Barack Obama's getting the TIVO treatment in my house as we at FanHouse discuss tonight's two headline games: North Carolina State @ South Carolina (8 p.m. Eastern) and Oregon State @ Stanford (9 p.m. Eastern). There's also a smattering of other teams we'll be keeping an eye on -- Miami, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Connecticut, Iowa State, Wake Forest and Baylor among them.

Be sure to join us in the chat, starting at 7:45 p.m. Eastern (after the jump)

It shouldn't have been a surprise to see the Braves ship Mark Kotsay to the Red Sox for a low-level prospect -- Kotsay will be a free agent this winter, the Braves are 17 games under .500 and haven't been in the playoff race since, well, April.

But even if there's nothing left to play for this year, at least Braves fans will get to watch some of their top prospects get a cup of coffee in September, right? Perhaps a sneak peek of Jordan Schafer, who could be the starting center fielder in 2009? Umm, not quite. From David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

So will we see Schafer in September? No. In fact, Wren said we won't see any of the Braves' top young prospects in September, including the pitchers like Tommy Hanson and Kris Medlen.

He said the reasoning was two-fold: 1. The Braves want to monitor innings on those guys, including Medlen, who's starting on a regular basis for the first time since high school, and 2. "roster management."

In other words, to add any of them, including Schafer, to the 40-man roster now would require the Braves take someone off and possibly lose them in the Rule 5 Draft.

I get the reasoning, but c'mon, throw the fans a bone. The Braves have three of their last 16 games -- it's going to take a little more than $1 Hot Dog Night and pretty girls wielding a t-shirt gun to convince anyone it's worth buying a ticket the final month.

With the college football season getting underway this weekend, one of the best games for watching 2009 NFL draft prospects will take place Saturday when USC visits Virginia.

But while USC is obviously the more talented team, here's a surprise prediction for you: The player in that game whose name Roger Goodell will call first next April will be Virginia left tackle Eugene Monroe.

Monroe is a 6-foot-6, 315-pound senior who has nimble feet for a big guy. He started 11 games for the Cavaliers last season and didn't allow a sack in any of them, and his coach compares him to the two Virginia offensive linemen drafted in the first round the last two years, D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Branden Albert.

Until he resigned this week, Jay Mariotti had been the second most famous columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times. The paper's most famous columnist, Roger Ebert, is the latest to tell Mariotti, "Good riddance."

An open letter from Ebert to Mariotti includes the following:

What an ugly way to leave the Sun-Times. It does not speak well for you. Your timing was exquisite. You signed a new contract, waited until days after the newspaper had paid for your trip to Beijing at great cost, and then resigned with a two-word e-mail: "I quit." You saved your explanation for a local television station.

As someone who was working here for 24 years before you arrived, I think you owed us more than that. You owed us decency. The fact that you saved your attack for TV only completes our portrait of you as a rat....

On your way out, don't let the door bang you on the ass.

Ebert is a brilliant writer and is at his best when he's skewering his subject, whether it's a badly made film or, in this case, a former colleague.