This just in: Alex Rodriguez is good. The Yankee third basemen put another ball out of the park Monday night in the Yanks' 8-2 victory over the Twins at the Metrodome. A-Rod now has 5 home runs in 6 games and leads the league with 5 HR, 13 RBI and a not too shabby slugging percentage of 1.080. A-Rod is finally beginning to actually earn the boo birds...on the road.

The real story of tonight's game though was Carl Pavano. He gave the Yankees' their first quality start of the season, going 7 full innings (gasp!), allowing only two runs on six hits. The bullpen probably still just needs a day off on the schedule the way they've been worked, but tonight they only had to go two innings, as Bruney (7 strikeouts in 3 and 2/3 scoreless innings...eek) and Kyle Farnsworth each pitched an inning of scoreless relief.

Offensively, despite A-Rod's current home run tear, most of the damage was done by Bobby Abreu, who went 3-5 with a homer and 4 RBI. Derek Jeter also added three hits and Johnny Damon went 2-4. Posada drove in two runs as well. Robinson Cano's 5-game hitting streak to start the season was snapped.

The Yankees will resume their series in Minnesota tonight at 8:10 E.T. Andy Pettite will be making his second start and will face second-year pitcher Boof Bonser. Pettite had a rather rough outing his first time around and failed to get through the 5th in the freezing temperatures but pitched an inning of scoreless relief on Sunday.