Shutout by Rays Rookie Caps Week of Drama for Yankees On Saturday, the day Derek Jeter was eligible to be activated from the disabled list, he instead played a simulated game. The time was unannounced. The place was initially left to one's imagination. "We're not going to disclose where it's at," Manager Joe Girardi said. The Yankees" obfuscation of Jeter's presumably last rehabilitation hurdle seemed a curious end to a bizarre week for the ball club in the Bronx, usually a stanchion of stability and self-assurance. On one hand, the Yankees were much more forthcoming about recovering players like Jayson Nix and Curtis Granderson (both playing rehabilitation games in Tampa, Fla.). The whereabouts of Jeter's clandestine sandlot, however, remained as mysterious as the Alex Rodriguez saga, which has had enough plot turns to fill a mini-series. It was another example of the Yankees" off-field dramatics taking center stage over the team's performance, which has not been stellar. Without Jeter in Saturday's lineup, the Yankees lost for the eighth time in 11 games, falling silently, 1-0, to the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium. Overmatched by a rookie pitcher, Chris Archer, the Yankees" offense mustered only three base runners, drawing heavy boos from the crowd as Ichiro Suzuki grounded out to polish off Archer's complete game. His performance was a gem: 2 hits, 6 strikeouts, no walks and a total of 97 pitches. He became the third visiting rookie pitcher in the last 30 years to win twice at Yankee Stadium in a season. "His last five or six starts, he's really been on a roll," Girardi said. I thought we hit some balls hard early on and didn't have a lot of success. They were standing right where we hit the ball. And we didn't really have many opportunities. Just one Yankees batter, Brett Gardner, reached scoring position, hitting a double with two outs in the sixth. Archer then retired the next 10 batters. "We hit quite a few hard-hit balls today, and they were right at people, so that was frustrating," Yankees catcher Chris Stewart said. Things are just not falling for us. Archer has thrown two shutouts in his last three starts, and with his performance Saturday set an American League record for the lowest earned run average by a rookie in the month of July (0.72). He retired the first 10 Yankees hitters and did not give up a hit until the fifth inning. With a 97-miles-per-hour fastball and a hard slider, Archer needed just 61 pitches to complete six innings, with 8 of the first 20 batters he faced grounding out. "He just kept going," Rays Manager Joe Maddon said. His composure never broke. Focus was great. The Yankees" starter, Ivan Nova, was almost as good, shutting out the Rays for the first five innings before a two-out single by Kelly Johnson in the sixth gave Tampa Bay its only run. It was the second straight start for Nova in which the Yankees did not score. "Sometimes when you pitch good, it's hard to be charged with a loss," Nova said. Nova breezed through the first three innings on 34 pitches. He put himself in trouble in the fourth with a leadoff double, but struck out Ben Zobrist, Matt Joyce and Johnson to end the inning, pumping his fist as he skipped off the mound. "He can throw strikes with that, and people have to respect that," Stewart said. He can dump in his changeup, and his curveball has been really good, too. But it starts with his fastball. Girardi, too, was clearly thrilled with Nova's performance but equally dismayed by the team's absence of offense. The Yankees failed to hit a home run in their ninth consecutive game, their longest streak since 1976, and were shut out for the ninth time this season, tying their most since 1992. "We ran into a guy that's throwing the ball exceptionally well," Girardi said. We just weren't able to do anything against him. The Yankees" newest acquisition, outfielder Alfonso Soriano, has yet to provide an offensive spark. Batting cleanup for the second straight game, Soriano went 0 for 3 and is hitless in eight at-bats since returning to the Bronx. The hope, again, is that Jeter's return will make something happen. After the game, Girardi laid out the desired details: Jeter's simulated game occurred on Staten Island; he took eight at-bats, ran the bases and fielded. Nothing controversial. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then again, ordinary has not been a word frequently used to describe the Yankees this season. Jeter will be re-evaluated to determine whether he can be activated Sunday. With 58 games remaining in the regular season, there is little time to waste. "If we're going to get back in this race, we're going to have to win games," Girardi said. We have to start making some headway. Designated hitter Travis Hafner was placed on the 15-day disabled list after the game Saturday; a magnetic resonance imaging test revealed a strained right rotator cuff. Joe Girardi said he believed Hafner injured the shoulder Friday during an at-bat.