Jeter admits he wasn't hit, but act put him on first

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A smiling Derek Jeter copped to it immediately. After the game.

"The bat," Jeter said last night when asked what the ball hit in the seventh inning. " told me to go to first. I'm not going to tell him I'm not going to go to first. My job is to get on base."

Barksdale ruled Chad Qualls' first pitch to Jeter, who squared to bunt, hit the shortstop on his left arm. Jeter certainly acted that way, hopping around as if a part of his arm had been, well, hit with a 91-mph fastball.

Jeter said the initial "vibration" caused him to grab his arm but also an equal amount of something else.

"Acting," he said.

Replays showed the ball hit the knob of Jeter's bat, which was Joe Maddon's contention as Joe Girardi and trainer Gene Monahan tended to Jeter. The umpires huddled and after the call was upheld, the Rays manager kept debating Barksdale.

"I was just trying to present logic because none of them could tell me that they knew that the ball had hit his hand, but everybody could have told me the ball did hit the bat," Maddon said. "So for me, it was a ground ball back to the pitcher."

Instead, it was Maddon being ejected and then Curtis Granderson hitting a two-run homer.

As Jeter watched Maddon argue with the umpires, he had one thought. "Don't change your mind," he said. "What can you say? My job is to get on. He said it hit me, so I'm not going to argue with him."