Theo Epstein and Peter Gammons Host 14th Annual Hot Stove Cool Music Benefit Concert this Saturday at Paradise Rock Club

Theo Epstein will return to Boston on Saturday night, along with Hall of Fame journalist Peter Gammons, to host the 14th Annual Hot Stove Cool Music Benefit Concert. The concert will be held at the Paradise Rock Club at 7:00pm. Doors will open at 6:00pm. The event benefits Epstein's Foundation to Be Named Later.

Foundation To Be Named Later (FTBNL) was launched in Spring of 2005 by Paul Epstein, a social worker in the Brookline public school system, and his twin brother, former Boston Red Sox Executive VP and GM and current Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations, Theo Epstein. Named after the MLB trade term "player to be named later," the mission of FTBNL is to raise funds and awareness for non-profit agencies, working on the front lines, serving disadvantaged youth and families. FTBNL invests in programs that teach leadership, education, and healthy development of families.

FTBNL has given over $6 million in grants and in-kind donations to over 200 non-profit organizations and has sent approximately 4,000 children, who would not otherwise get the chance to go to a game, to Red Sox, Cubs, and Celtics home games. The Peter Gammons/FTBNL College Scholarship (named in honor of Hall of Famer and FTBNL Champion, Peter Gammons) is the signature program of FTBNL and has sent more than 36 young people with high financial needs and high educational potential to the college of their choice. Each Gammons Scholar gets an adult mentor and a laptop computer to ensure college success.

This year's Hot Stove Cool Music Benefit Concert will feature rock super group The Baseball Project, featuring members of the iconic rock band R.E.M.; rock and soul band Trigger Hippy, featuring Joan Osborne and members of The Black Crowes; indie rocker Howie Day, Boston-born Kay Hanley, and rising stars Kingsley Flood.

Gammons and his Hot Stove All-Stars will feature Paul Barrere from Little Feat, Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz, Belly’s Tanya Donelly, Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper, the Upper Crust’s Chris Cote, Seth Justman from the J. Geils Band, Will Dailey, Jed Parish & Lucky Jackson from The Gravel Pit, with actor-comedian Mike O’Malley serving as emcee.

The concert will be followed by the Sports Roundtable on January 21, which will feature a candid forum about "Building and Maintaining a Winning Culture" with Gammons and a number of sports executives, players and journalists participating, including Red Sox pitcher, Craig Breslow.

VIP tickets to the concert and roundtable as well as general admission tickets for $40 are on sale now, and can be purchased at FTBNL.org

Red Sox Win Game 4 Unobstructed

This series just gets weirder and weirder. Saturday night gives us the first ever walk-off obstruction call in World Series history. Sunday night gives us the first ever game-ending pickoff in World Series history.

The 2013 Red Sox find a way to to support each other. When one player struggles or makes a mistake, the others make up for their teammate's failures. John Lackey, normally a starter, pitched a scoreless 8th inning, bridging the gap between Junichi Tazwawa and Koji Uehara when Craig Breslow couldn't get an out. That's how the Sox have done it all season. Even when your starter is hurt and only manages to pitch 4 innings, a guy like Felix Doubront enters the game and pitches 2.2 innings of quality relief. He was charged with a run, but that was Breslow's fault.

While some members of the Red Sox picked up their teammates, others stepped up and made the big plays that decided the game. None more than David Ortiz and Jonny Gomes Sunday night.

Ortiz is red hot in the World Series. He's 8 for 11 with 2 homeruns and a double. That double came Sunday night, leading off the 5th. After Ortiz reached second base, he looked into the Red Sox dugout and screamed words of encouragement to his teammates in English and Spanish. ¡Vámonos! He eventually scored on a Stephen Drew sac-fly.

Before the 6th inning Ortiz gave a motivational speech to his teammates in the dugout. And then Jonny Gomes hit the 3-run homerun that pushed the Sox to victory. How much did the pep-talk affect Gomes? There's no way to accurately measure that. Although in the postgame press conference Sunday night, Gomes beamed as he talked about Ortiz and his leadership.

Jonny Gomes hasn't gotten a lot of hits this year. But the hits he gets mean a lot.

In 2013 David Ortiz has taken on more of a leadership role. He isn't just everyone's friend in the clubhouse. He's expecting more from his teammates and pushing them to push themselves. After the game he spoke about what he told his teammates before the 6th:

"Let's loosen up... What got us to this level is doing what we normally do. If you run, run. If you play defense, play defense. If you hit, hit. If you pitch, you pitch. That's all it takes to win games. And it clicked."

I'm not looking forward to Craig Breslow's next appearance. He's looked dreadful in this series. Without him the bullpen gets stretched very thin. That means the starters must go deeper into games.

Hopefully that's exactly what Jon Lester does Monday night. He faces Adam Wainwright in a rematch of Game 1.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chris Lee

Red Sox Bresblow Game 2

In the ALCS against the Tigers, the Red Sox bullpen was a relative strength. Against the Cardinals, that advantage is no longer there. I'd venture to say that St. Louis has the edge with their top-level relievers. Craig Breslow had been very good in the playoffs. Last night he blew it. He entered a 2-1 game with 2 on and 1 out. His pitching didn't preserve the lead, and his throwing error didn't preserve the tie. Breslow blew it.

Offensively, the Red Sox only managed 4 hits. Give credit to Cardinals rookie Michael Wacha for that. David Ortiz collected 2 hits, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia had the others for the Sox. The Red Sox 5 through 9 hitters combined to go 0 for 17 with 8 strikeouts.

Give credit to the Cardinals pitchers in this one. Wacha was excellent. Then Carlos Martinez pitched 2 great innings, striking out 3. And closer Trevor Rosenthal struck out the side in the 9th. I was hoping Mike Matheny would pull Martinez when Ortiz came to the plate in the 8th. Ortiz hit a single, but I think the move to keep Martinez in the game was correct. He was mowing the Sox down.

The Red Sox could have stolen this one had Breslow done his job. Even if he kept the score at 2-2, then anything could have happened. I don't want to peg one loss on just one pitcher. Especially since most of the hitters did nothing. But Breslow didn't do his job, and it cost the Sox a win, and a 2-0 advantage going to Missouri.

Although I do have a feeling that if the Sox see Wacha again, they'll do much better against him.

Also remember that the Sox started the ALCS 1-1, and that ended well.

Now this series is 1-1. Which isn't the end of the world. The Sox lose the DH because stupid NL fans like watching pitchers bunt and strikeout. That's entertainment to you people? Anyway, Jake Peavy takes the mound against Joe Kelly Saturday night. Kelly was 5-7 this year, with a 3.53 ERA. In the NL. So hopefully the Sox can tag him for a few runs and Peavy can pitch well against an NL team, which he has done this year.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Red Sox Coming Back to Boston, Rays Staying in Tampa Bay

This was why the Red Sox got Jake Peavy. They wanted a good pitcher to anchor the bottom of the rotation. And Peavy came through for the Sox last night. So did Craig Breslow, Junichi Tazawa, and of course Koji Uehara. Those 4 pitchers combined for 9 innings, allowing just 1 run, 6 hits (only 1 for extra-bases), 0 walks, and struck out 10.

By the way, Jose Iglesias is 1 for 12 in the other ALDS. That trade's looking better and better.

The Rays played with fire for most of this game. Their pitchers enjoyed some fortunate double plays to get out of jams. Manager Joe Maddon went with an unorthodox strategy that seemed to work for a time. But how many different pitchers can you bring into a game before one of them just doesn't get the job done?

Joe Maddon has a bit of Bobby Valentine in him. He tries too hard to influence the outcome of the game through his managerial decisions. Sometimes the best thing a manager can do is step back and let his players play, choosing the right time to make one or two smart moves, instead of trying to make a dozen good moves every night.

John Farrell will get credit for pinch-hitting Xander Bogaerts in the 7th, but give the credit to Bogaerts for working a walk. He didn't look like someone who just turned 21 on October 1st and started the season in AA Portland. That was a mature plate appearance for such a young player.

Then the Rays made mistakes. Which they've done all series long. And the Red Sox capitalized on those mistakes. Which they've done all series long. The Sox used their speed to exploit Tampa Bay's miscues. Bogaerts scored on a wild pitch, Ellsbury advanced to third after stealing second on the play, then Victorino legged out an infield single. The Sox scored the tying and winning runs without a ball leaving the infield.

That's how they've won all season long. Whatever it takes, they'll find some way to win. The pitching was great, the offense struggled at first then took advantage of one mistake to score 2 runs. This team seems to will itself to victory.

Now they have a few days off, waiting for the Athletics/Tigers series to resolve itself. Jon Lester gets to rest while those two teams hopefully wear each other out.

Game 1 of the ALCS is Saturday at Fenway Park.

In conclusion, here's Jonny Gomes doing a crazy sprinkler dance...

Photo Credit:
Steve Mitchell - USA Today Sports

Red Sox Get Another Extra Win in Extra Innings

This is the type of game the Sox would lose in 2012 and at the end of 2011. Someone would make a big error, or a reliever would give up 4 runs without getting an out. This year this team finds ways to win. Even when one reliever doesn't do well, the others step up and put the fire out. And the offense eventually does just enough to win the game.

The Sox are 8-4 in extra-inning games, 3-0 since the All-Star Break. Squeezing out these extra wins instead of blowing them has been the difference between 1st and 2nd place. A 6-6 record in extra-inning games and the Sox would be tied with the Rays in the loss column.

Ryan Dempster was better than solid last night. The Sox weren't hitting for him. He only allowed 1 run in his 7 innings. And if Tazawa hadn't allowed a homerun in the 8th, Dempster would have been in line for his 7th win of the season. Which would have been nice because his 6-8 record doesn't reflect how decently he's pitched this year. In 4 of those 8 losses he's thrown a Quality Start. He hasn't been amazing, but he has done what he was hired to do here.

It seems like it's different heroes every night with the Sox. Last night it was Shane Victorino with a 2-run single in the 11th. Victorino also threw out Jose Reyes at home plate to end the 6th.

The other hero was Craig Breslow who struck out Mark DeRosa with 2 on and 2 out in the 10th. It's funny how a relief appearance like that gets no decision. No win, no hold, no save. Maybe we can invent a new stat for relievers: Fires Extinguished (FE). Whenever a reliever enters a game mid-inning with the tying or go-ahead run in scoring position and doesn't give up that run, then it's an FE. I know it's not as advanced as those newfangled Sabermetrics, but I like it.

The Rays lost to the Mariners so the Sox now have a 4-game (2 in the loss column) lead in the division.

Jon Lester takes the mound tonight against Josh Johnson. Lester did well in his last start but didn't get any support. It would be nice for the Sox to make things easy and score 6 or 7 runs. And it'd be nice if Jon Lester made things easy and held Toronto to 4 or fewer. Johnson is 2-8 with a 6.60 ERA. This is a game to win.

Photo Credit:
Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

Red Sox Make Small Moves on Deadline Day

On Monday I wrote that I didn't want the Sox to be buyers or sellers on Deadline Day. I wanted them to do nothing. That's essentially what they did.

They traded Matt Albers and Scott Podsednik to the Diamondbacks for Craig Breslow. Albers was a righty, Breslow is a lefty. Breslow's pitched in 40 games this year for Arizona and has a respectable 2.70 ERA and 1.18 WHIP. You may remember him from 2006 when he made 13 appearances for the Sox.

The Sox also traded Lars Anderson to Cleveland for Steven Wright. Here's a highlight video:

He's actually a minor league knuckle-ball pitcher. He's 27 years old, and is 9-6 with a 2.49 ERA in AA Akron this year. He hasn't had much success in the minors. But he hasn't been a failure either.

A very dull Deadline Day for the Sox. I'm glad they didn't give up any young talent. They have a chance to make the playoffs this year, but they're not Championship contenders. And if they do win, it will be because of the players they have, not any additional pieces.