Yanks Take Opener From Twins

On a night of intermittent rain and blustery wind, the Yankees teed off on starter Carlos Silva (8-13) and dominated behind the excellent two hit pitching of Corey Lidle through six innings (3-2) on their way to an 8-1 win in the Bronx.

A-Rod had another good night going 3-5 with two homers (29) and three RBI (99) and one curtain call. Derek Jeter also had a good night going 3-5 to raise his average to .342 and is now just .08 percentage points behind league leader Joey Mauer who broke out of an 0-16 slump with a base hit that bounced out of the webbing of Johnny Damon's glove in the fourth.

The Yankees remained eight games ahead of Boston who beat Toronto tonight 2-1. It seems that the fight is out of the Sox as they have some serious pressing personnel issues to deal with presently.

Twigs and Berries: The Yankees clinched their 15th straight winning season at home.

The remaing two games of this series seem somewhat in doubt and at the mercy of the remnants of Ernesto. You can track its progress here.