Jeff Karstens made his third start of the year for the Yankees and immediately fell into trouble, giving up a leadoff triple to Rocco Baldelli. Baldelli would score on a Delmon Young groundout and though Carl Crawford would get on, Karstens would eventually get out of the inning having given up only one run.

The Yankees were trotting out an interesting lineup (Joe wanted to his regular OF to rest and avoid the slick grass) and led off with Bernie, who lined out before Jeter singled to extend his hitting streak to 23. Cano, in the #3 hole, struck out and A-Rod flied out to left center. That would be all for the Yanks until the bottom of the second when Hideki Matsui, with two-outs, put together a very good at-bat and ended up homering to deep right on the 8th pitch of his at-bat.

The Rays took back the lead in the 3rd as with one out, Rocco Baldelli would take advantage of Karsten's fly-ball tendencies and hit a solo homerun. Karstens worked around a Delmon Young single, getting Carl Crawford to ground into a force out and striking out Greg Norton.

Karstens ran into trouble in the 5th and gave up two more runs when Rocco Baldelli (who else?) homered again following a Ben Zobrist single. The Rays wouldn't hold onto the lead very long as in the bottom of the same inning, the Yankees put up a 3 spot to tie the game. Matsui led off with a single and Aaron Guiel singled him over to 2nd. With first and second, no one out, Kevin Thompson and Bernie Williams couldn't do much and both struck out before handing the baton to Derek Jeter. Derek promptly singled to right to score Matsui and Robbie Cano stepped up with a double to plate both Guiel and Jeter. Tie game.

Darrell Rasner came on in the sixth and simply shut the Rays down for the rest of the game, going 4 strong innings with 1 hit allowed and striking out 5. Now, I mentioned this the other day over at Joseph P.'s Sporting Brews but I wanted to say it again. I would rather see Darrell Rasner being given a push and a chance to make the playoff roster than Karstens. Honestly, at this point, I would rather see him there than Lidle. This is only because Rasner has been on the AAA/MLB level for a couple of years now and more importantly, is more of a GB pitcher. That will certainly help in the playoffs when you face a strong line-up or pitch in a homer-friendly park. Now, I believe that Karstens will eventually become a GB guy because of the sinker of his but for now, I'd rather take the chance on the more experienced arm. I hope that Rasner gets another couple of opportunities to pitch and does well in those outings though I very much doubt that he makes the postseason roster.

In any case, the Yankees scored the winning runs in the bottom of the 7th when both Kevin Thompson and Bernie atoned for their earlier strikeouts with singles. With first and third and one out (a Guiel strikeout to start the inning), Derek Jeter struck out in front of Robbie Cano, who lashed another 2-run double to put the Yanks ahead. A-Rod was up next and singled home Cano to amke the score 7-4 Yanks, which would be the final.

Well, that's six in a row, the division lead is up to 11.5 and the magic number is down to 6. It makes this weekend series pretty anticlimatic, huh? I guess the only thing left to do for this coming series is to start chanting MVP when Jeter comes to the plate