Yanks not too concerned about early home struggles

NEW YORK -- The Yankees have enjoyed a run of dominance in their own building since the new Yankee Stadium opened for business in 2009, but victories have been in shorter supply at home for the Bombers this season.

New York entered play on Saturday one game below .500 at home, owning an 11-12 record.

"I think it's a fairly small sample size. I wouldn't make too much of it," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "Obviously, it's important that we play better at home, and it's important that you take advantage of your home ballpark and the way your team is built. So far we haven't as much as we should have."

Coming off Friday's 6-1 loss to the Twins, scoring more runs is an obvious priority.

"It seems like throughout the course of the year we always have these little streaks," Derek Jeter said. "Every team has these streaks when you're not doing what you would like to do.

"All you can do is keep battling. That's about it. For the most part, I think we've been playing all right, but there's always room for improvement and scoring runs is one of them."

The Yankees have been well above the break-even mark in each of their first five seasons calling the facility home, beginning with the World Series championship season of '09, when they went 57-24 (.703) during the regular season.

Overall, the Yankees came into this season owning a 258-147 (.637) regular-season record at Yankee Stadium, and their opponents do not seem to expect those struggles in the building to continue for long.

"It's a tough place to play," Twins outfielder Josh Willingham said. "They're tough at home and always have been."