Rays beat Yankees, stay even with Red Sox

Brian Cashman is happy to be in neither rival's position.

"Both parties involved, Boston and Tampa, they're having sleepless nights,'' the Yankees general manager said here before Tuesday night's's game.

Certainly, Tuesday night was one.

Rafael Soriano coughed up a 3-2 seventh-inning lead when Tampa native Matt Joyce hit a three-run homer, leading the Rays to a 5-3 victory over the Yankees at Tropicana Field.

That meant, with the Red Sox hanging on in Baltimore, Tampa and Boston enter the final day of the regular season tied for the AL wild card. Should Jon Lester win in Baltimore and the Rays and David Price beat the parade of relievers and mostly minor leaguers Joe Girardi plans to throw Wednesday night, or should both teams lose, Tampa and Boston will have a one-game playoff Thursday at 4:07 p.m. at Tropicana Field.

"It will be an exciting day for baseball tomorrow,'' Girardi said, also mentioning the NL wild-card race, in which the Cardinals drew even with the collapsing Braves.

Said Rays manager Joe Maddon: "We just have to worry about ourselves, play our game. Try to win our game and not worry about the other side of it.''

Girardi still did not name a starter for Wednesday night, and although he said he planned to play most of his regulars, he didn't sound like a manager planning to play them the entire game. "I'll have to wait and see,'' he said.

Although last night's game was essentially meaningless for the Yankees, it was not for Bartolo Colon, who had an outside shot of starting Game 3 of the ALDS (against an opponent still to be determined). He likely didn't do enough, though he wasn't bad, allowing two runs and seven hits in 51/3 innings, leaving with a 3-2 lead.

"The velocity was not as high as it's been,'' Girardi said of Colon, who gave up a two-run homer to Ben Zobrist in the second that made it 2-0. "You saw 88-92. We didn't see the 93s, 94s and 95s.''

The Yankees pulled to 2-1 on Russell Martin's 18th home run in the third and tied it in the fifth on Curtis Granderson's double-play grounder.

The Yankees took a 3-2 lead in the sixth off Rookie of the Year candidate Jeremy Hellickson. Mark Teixeira, batting fifth as Robinson Cano hit third, doubled Alex Rodriguez to third. Nick Swisher doubled in A-Rod. But Hellickson got out of a major jam in spectacular fashion.

With the bases loaded, Martin grounded into a 5-5-4-3 triple play started by Evan Longoria. Through six, the Rays had left eight and were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Then Joyce came through against Soriano, who walked his first two batters before the blast.

"It was the walks that killed him tonight,'' Girardi said of Soriano, who had been unscored on in eight consecutive games. "But if you're going to have it happen, get it out of the way tonight. He's been so good for us, I don't make much of it.''

Before the game, the topic of the day was Girardi's decision -- against only righthanders for now -- to flip Teixeira and Cano in the order. It was a move he'd been toying with for weeks.

"I'm all for it, I think it's a great idea,'' Teixeira said.

The switch hitter came in hitting .221 with a .324 OBP lefthanded compared to .297 with a .377 OBP righthanded. "Right now, the fact is my average stinks lefthanded,'' he said.

Cano, hitting .317 with a .364 OBP in the season's second half, is hitting .322 against lefties over all with a .362 OBP.

Teixeira has 37 homers and 106 RBIs. He went 2-for-4 to raise his average to .246, far below the career mark of .286 he brought into this season.