Johnson hits pair of two-run HRs as Rays beat Yanks

Phil Hughes was good, as good as he's been all season. Except that he couldn't get Dan Johnson out.

Johnson, who came in hitting .200 with three homers, hit a pair of two-run homers off poorly placed Hughes fastballs, the difference in the Yankees' 4-3 loss to the Rays last night in front of an energetic crowd of 29,733 at Tropicana Field.

It was the third consecutive one-run game between the AL East powers, with the Rays winning two to take a half-game lead. After the Yankees, who have lost four of five and eight of 10, play three against the Orioles, they return home for a four-game series against the Rays.

"I don't think we've played poorly," said Derek Jeter, the leading man in a seventh-inning controversy. "They won those close games. Hopefully, we find ways to get it done, but I don't think everyone's here saying we're playing bad."

Hughes didn't pitch that way last night. He took a perfect game and a 1-0 lead into the fifth, when Evan Longoria led off with a single. The 31-year-old Johnson, who spent most of the season in the minors, pulled a full-count pitch down the rightfield line to make it 2-1.

After Curtis Granderson's two-run homer gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead in the seventh, Johnson beat Hughes again in the bottom half, ripping a 2-and-1 pitch halfway up the stands in right to give the Rays a 4-3 lead.

"It's tough," Joe Girardi said. "It's an important game and he pitched extremely well and you make two mistakes and you get beat. I liked the way he pitched, though."

So did Hughes, with the exception of two pitches. "He yanked a fastball down and in both times," he said. "For the most part I executed my pitches to the other guys, and he was the one that I didn't."

Hughes allowed four runs and six hits in 62/3 innings, striking out five and walking none.

"It's a loss, so it's always going to be a negative," he said. " . . . But there were some positives I can take away for my next start."

One of the season's strangest sequences helped the Yankees retake the lead in the seventh.

After Colin Curtis lined out against James Shields, who had thrown 117 pitches, allowing a run and eight hits, Joe Maddon called for Chad Qualls to face Jeter. He squared to bunt and Qualls' fastball appeared to hit his left arm. Replays showed it did not, but Jeter was awarded first base. Maddon was ejected and Granderson's homer made it 3-2.

"It's part of the game," Jeter said. "I've been hit before and they've said you weren't hit. My job is to get on base. Fortunately for us, it paid off at the time. I'm sure it would have been a bigger story if we had won the game."

But the Yankees, who stranded 10 and went 2-for-9 with men in scoring position, a continuation of a recent trend, did not.

"Our team's about timely hitting and quality at-bats and we haven't been doing that," said Alex Rodriguez, who struck out for the final out against Rafael Soriano, who earned his 43rd save.

"But it's hard to go 162 games and not run into a wall. We've lasted a long time [before] running into it. Hopefully, we get that behind us. We know exactly what we're capable of doing."