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Sep 9, 2009 - 4:20 AM By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN STATS Senior Writer

Tampa Bay (72-66) at New York (89-50), 7:05 p.m. EDT

Derek Jeter has picked an odd time for his longest slump of the year.

He'll try to shake out of an 0-for-12 skid in his continuing bid to move closer to Lou Gehrig's franchise record for hits as the New York Yankees seek to complete a four-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday.

The Yankee captain appeared poised to break Gehrig's mark of 2,721 hits entering this series Monday, needing only four hits to surpass the total of the legendary "Iron Horse" for baseball's most successful franchise.

The shortstop went 0 for 8 with a walk in Monday's doubleheader sweep and was 0 for 4 with three strikeouts Tuesday in a 3-2 victory and wasn't available for postgame interviews. Now he's trying to avoid a fourth straight hitless start for the first time since he had five in a row May 20-24, 2008.

"I've never seen him press before, so I don't know what it looks like," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "He's taking a lot of ribbing from this teammates. I'm sure it's on his mind. I think he wants to put this behind him."

Jeter has a double in his only at-bat against Jeff Niemann (12-5, 3.67 ERA), who will start for Tampa Bay.

New York (90-50) hasn't missed a beat without any hits from Jeter and can finish its first four-game home sweep of Tampa Bay since Sept. 6-9, 2004. Nick Swisher's second homer of the game was a game-winning solo shot in the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday as the Yankees won for the ninth time in 10 games.

Swisher entered with 21 of his 24 homers coming on the road before he went deep from both sides of the plate for his third multihomer game this season.

The Yankees remained nine games ahead of Boston in the AL East race.

Tampa Bay (72-67) is mired in a season-high seven-game losing streak and 8 1/2 games behind wild-card leader Boston. The Rays have scored 19 runs during their slide with 58 strikeouts in 219 at-bats.

"The inches have been going against us," manager Joe Maddon said. "This is pretty much the script of the last three weeks."

New York's Joba Chamberlain (8-5, 4.41) will try to win for the first time in six starts. He's 0-3 with an 8.14 ERA in that span, and hasn't pitched past the fifth inning in the last four outings.

Chamberlain posted his second straight three-inning stint Friday at Toronto and yielded three runs in a 6-0 loss. He has thrown a total of 94 pitches in his last two outings as the Yankees continue to limit his innings while he starts on regular rest.

The right-hander is 1-0 with a 1.93 ERA in two starts against Tampa Bay this year. Jason Bartlett is the only Rays hitter with more than one career hit against Chamberlain, going 3 for 6.

Niemann will make his second career start against the Yankees. He gave up two runs over 3 1-3 innings May 7 in an 8-6 victory.

The right-hander is 3-0 with a 3.38 ERA in his last seven outings since the start of August. He yielded one run over 7 2-3 innings Friday in a 4-3 loss to Detroit.