Yankees respond to pressure with win over Rays

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Yankees edged the Tampa Bay Rays 2-1 in Florida on Wednesday, rising to a challenge issued by their owner and their manager as the Bronx Bombers halted the home team's six-game winning streak.

Mike Mussina allowed one run and five hits over 6 1/3 innings in winning his fifth consecutive decision to improve his record to 6-3 aided by relief help from Russ Ohlendorf, Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera.

Robinson Cano, who went 4-for-4, drove in the first run with a single to center in the fourth and Bobby Abreu blooped an RBI-double to left in the fifth for the winning margin.

The victory improved New York's record to 20-21 and came after Yankee owner Hank Steinbrenner had told the players to start earning their bloated salaries and a 35-minute, closed door team meeting before the game.

"We needed one real bad," Yankee veteran Mussina said about the narrow win by a team struggling to score runs in the absence of injured Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada.

"The season is so long, there's so many things that happen. There's ups and downs.

"You're certainly not going to go a whole year playing for the Yankees without somebody up top talking about you because that happens and you're certainly not going to go without having meetings.

"We looked good today because we played well."

Jamie Shields yielded two runs on six hits over 7 1/3 innings to drop to 4-3 as the Rays slipped to 23-17 but still held a half game lead over Boston in the East.

Yankee captain Derek Jeter said he thought the meeting might have helped. "Our intensity was up a little bit," the shortstop said.

"We haven't been playing that well," the shortstop said. "Moose (Mussina) deserves all the credit, he did an outstanding job. Obviously we didn't score as many runs as we'd like but we played good defense, we pitched well."

Said Yankee manager Joe Girardi: "It's no fun losing. We lost a real difficult one last night, got our rear ends kicked the first night. We got rained out on Sunday. When you don't win for three days you get cranky."

(Writing by Larry Fine, Editing by John O'Brien)