Yankees Battle Back Against Price and Win It in the Ninth PETERSBURG, Fla. - Within an instant of unleashing a fat pitch to Jose Molina in the seventh inning Tuesday night, Phil Hughes thought he had blown the game. Molina hit the pitch for a single that tilted a taut, compelling game in favor of the Tampa Bay Rays. With David Price, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner - and a left-hander, to boot - still on the mound, it seemed the Rays could not lose. But the Yankees evened the score for the second time in the eighth. And when Price departed with a runner on and no outs in the ninth, they took advantage by scoring twice off relief pitcher Fernando Rodney for a 4-3 win, one of their scrappiest victories of the season. In recent years the Yankees have thumped their way to many a victory with overwhelming power. Even this year at times they have used the long ball to win games. But on Tuesday, this aged group of players also showed it can win by going from first to third, stealing key bases and playing solid defense, adding another description to their approach. "It's scrappy," Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. Ichiro Suzuki, 39, had the game-winning hit and 43-year-old Mariano Rivera got the save, his sixth of the season, but not before giving up a home run to Evan Longoria on his first pitch. Rivera got the next three batters to end a two-game losing streak for the short-handed Yankees. Hughes struggled in the first inning but allowed only one run. The Yankees broke through against Price in the fourth to tie it, 1-1, and Hughes kept it there until the seventh when he walked the leadoff batter, Matt Joyce. James Loney hit a one-out line-drive single to center and that brought up Molina. Hughes gave him a fastball over the outer third of the plate and Molina had no trouble pushing it the opposite way into right field for a single. Joyce came around to score to give the Rays a 2-1 lead. On the same play, first baseman Lyle Overbay, playing in place of the injured Kevin Youkilis, cut off the throw from Suzuki and his relay to third caught Loney as Jayson Nix appeared to block Loney's access to the bag with his foot. Hughes got Kelly Johnson looking at a backdoor slider to end the inning, but he did not seem happy as he walked off the mound. "I thought the game was over in the seventh after making that bad pitch," Hughes said. Thankfully, the guys fought back and got us a win. With the game tied, 2-2, Robinson Cano led off the ninth with a feisty at-bat, punching a single to left on an 0-2 pitch that finally sent Price to the dugout. Rodney came in and intentionally walked pinch-hitter Travis Hafner and then unintentionally walked Overbay to load the bases. Christ Stewart fouled out, but Suzuki, who was batting only .200 coming into the game, lined a single to center to drive in Cano and Hafner as Rivera started to warm up in the bullpen. "I just wanted to be ready mentally and emotionally for that," Suzuki said through his interpreter. So I decided to swing at that pitch and I was ready to go out there. Suzuki was also integral to the Yankees" tying the score in the eighth. He reached on a ground-ball single to right and went to third on Nix's single through the hole on the left side. Suzuki was running on the play and did not see the hit. But when he saw the ball go in front of him, he knew he could get to third. "It's hard to explain," he said. All the experience that I have, I had a feel that I could make it. It was a critical play because he was able to score on Brett Gardner's ground ball to the right side. Considering the Yankees had been struggling against left-handed pitchers, carrying a .190 batting average into the game, that they were without the right-handed Youkilis, and that Price is so good and so tough against them, this was no small victory. "It feels like a little bit bigger of a win," Girardi said. Mark Teixeira said Tuesday that he still felt stiffness in his injured right wrist and that he would not be back by May 1, as he had hoped. Teixeira insisted that this was not a setback, and that he still hoped to return by the middle of May. "I'm hoping that's still the timetable," he said. ... Joe Girardi said he exchanged text messages with Derek Jeter, who is in a protective boot for the fracture in his left ankle. He said Jeter planned to meet the team on Thursday in New York.