Jeter goes 5-5, hits game-winner and passes 3,000 hits

NEW YORK, July 9 (Reuters) - Derek Jeter wasted no time reaching his target of 3,000 career hits Saturday then went three better including the game-winning hit as the New York Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4.

Jeter homered, doubled and had three singles for a 5-for-5 performance that drew serenades of “De-rek Je-ter” from a sell-out crowd of 48,000 in the Bronx.
Entering the game on 2,998 hits after Friday’s rained-out game, Jeter singled in the first off Rays left-hander David Price, and in his first opportunity at registering No. 3,000, he put an exclamation mark on the feat with a home run in the third.
That made the shortstop the 28th player in Major League Baseball to reach that milestone.
The Yankees captain was not through, adding a double to left in the fifth and a single to right in the sixth.
Tampa Bay rallied to tie the game 4-4 with a run in the eighth inning, but Jeter came through one more time in the Yankees’ half of the frame, singling to center through a drawn-in infield to score Eduardo Nunez for the go-ahead run.
Jeter finished the game with 3,003 hits, 27th on MLB’s hits list.
Reliever David Robertson , who gave up the tying run in the eighth, picked up the win to improve to 2-0 while closer Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth for his 22nd save.
Rays reliever Joel Peralta took the loss, dropping to 2-4.
The win put the Yankees (52-35) into a temporary tie for first place with the Boston Red Sox in the American League East.