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A-Rod homers as Yanks top Rays

Sep 3, 2008 - 4:51 AM ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Ticker) -- The New York Yankees aren't ready to concede their playoff hopes just yet.

Alex Rodriguez hit a historic home run and Mike Mussina remained unbeaten in his last seven starts as the Yankees defeated the Tampa Bay Rays, 7-2, Tuesday.

Rodriguez's home run in the eighth off Jason Hammel was the 548th of his career and moved him into a 12th place tie on the all-time list with Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt.

Xavier Nady also added a two-run shot as the Yankees ended the Rays' five-game winning streak. The loss allowed the Boston Red Sox (81-57) to move within four games of Tampa Bay (83-52) atop American League East.

"We need wins, we needed Moose to pitch well tonight and that's exactly what we did," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

New York (74-64) is seven games behind the Red Sox in the wild card race.

"We are just trying to win ballgames anyway we can," Mussina said. "I'm just trying to contribute on my day, so today was a decent day."

Despite allowing a season-high tying 10 hits in six innings, Mussina (17-7) improved to 4-0 in his last seven starts and 7-1 in his last 12 starts. The veteran righthander allowed two runs, walked one and struck out a season-high tying eight.

"For the most part I had pretty decent counts most of the time," Mussina said. "We battled, we got out of some situations, we got some big hits when we needed it and the bullpen was solid again."



The Rays, who lost at home for just the 20th time in 72 games, stranded 10 runners.

"We made some mistakes tonight that also contributed," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. "We did not execute the way we normally do and they did.

"You can't be perfect every night. You're not going to be perfect every night. I thought we battled to the end."

Trailing 1-0 in the fourth, Jason Giambi lifted a sacrifice fly and Nady followed with a two-run homer off Matt Garza for a 3-1 lead. In the fifth, Johnny Damon's RBI triple and Derek Jeter's groundout made it 5-1.

Leading 6-2 in the eighth, Rodriguez hit his 30th homer of the season to pull even with Schmidt on the all-time list. Next up for Rodriguez is former Yankees great Reggie Jackson with 563 blasts.

Garza (11-8) allowed five hits and six runs - four earned - in five innings. He stuck out two and walked one.

"I felt like I made a lot of good pitches tonight, but things didn't go my way," Garza said. "I was more disappointed about the whole situation. Tonight was one of those nights when I was not all intact and I paid for it."