Millwood, Mother Nature leave Yankees all wet

NEW YORK (AP) -- The rain keeps following the Texas Rangers, and they hardly seem to mind.

Kevin Millwood pitched seven crisp innings, Mark Teixeira hit a tiebreaking single in the eighth and Texas beat the New York Yankees 4-2 Monday night on another soggy day at the ballpark for the Rangers.

"We're the rainmakers," manager Buck Showalter said. "Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?"

A little bit.

"Good," he said.

Brad Wilkerson homered to begin the comeback from a two-run deficit, and Texas snapped an eight-game losing streak to the Yankees that dated to last season.

Michael Young and Hank Blalock each drove in a run for the Rangers, who had played only 5½ innings since Wednesday because they were rained out twice in Boston over the weekend. They beat the Red Sox 6-0 on Friday night in a game cut short by showers.

"I think we'll be all right when we get to Houston. They've got a roof," Millwood said.

Mike Mussina delivered another fine outing for the Yankees, who have lost consecutive games and managed only three runs in 23 innings. Without injured sluggers Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui, New York has scored 12 runs in the last five games.

First baseman Jason Giambi, who made a diving stop in the third to save a run, left after the seventh with a strained neck.

"As the game went on it got stiff. It'll be all right, it's not anything serious," he said.

Giambi hopes to play Tuesday night, but manager Joe Torre wasn't so sure.

"He couldn't turn his neck. We certainly don't want to go without him for an extended period of time," Torre said. "Remember in the spring when we were talking about who's going to hit 3-4-5-6? We don't have those problems right now."

Millwood (4-3) retired his final 12 batters after Robinson Cano's RBI single in the fourth and beat the Yankees for the first time. With play ready to resume after a 22-minute rain delay in the middle of the eighth, Millwood threw a few warmup pitches, then came out.

"He was honest with us. He had stiffened up a little bit," Showalter said. "Kevin's not the kind of guy that's going to let his heart get in the way of his head."

The Rangers hadn't used their bullpen since Wednesday. Francisco Cordero worked a scoreless eighth and Akinori Otsuka got three quick outs for his fifth save in five chances.

The Yankees swept three games in Texas from May 5-7.

Millwood allowed two runs and five hits, throwing 55 of his 78 pitches for strikes. He fanned six and walked none, rebounding from a 15-5 loss to Minnesota in his previous start when he gave up nine runs and nine hits in 1 1-3 innings.

"Anytime you get four outs in a game, you've got a little motivation to do better," Millwood said. "I think everybody here knows what I can do, but you still definitely want to show them."

The right-hander entered 0-3 with a 5.92 ERA in four starts against the Yankees.

With the score tied at 2 and rain beginning to fall, Gary Matthews Jr. opened the eighth with a double that was fumbled by 21-year-old rookie Melky Cabrera in left field. He advanced on a wild pitch by Kyle Farnsworth (1-1) and scored when Teixeira singled.

Blalock added a broken-bat RBI single, making it 4-2.

"We complain about it because we're not playing, and you want to make sure you keep your timing, but those two days off in Boston did me a lot of good," Matthews said.

Umpires halted play in the middle of the eighth -- but no sooner had the grounds crew rolled out the tarp than the rain stopped. Still, in an odd sight on the mound, plate umpire Tim Timmons discarded the resin bag, which was tossed to a bat boy and then to a fan in the stands.

Mussina reeled off his ninth straight solid start. Looking to become the first seven-game winner in the majors, he yielded two runs and six hits in seven innings, striking out five and walking one. He had won five consecutive starts.

But he failed to hold a 2-0 lead.

"I felt like I was locating my fastball pretty well all night long," Millwood said. "I think I just mixed it up a little better late in the game."

Bubba Crosby's two-out RBI single put the Yankees ahead in the second. Cano had a run-scoring single in the fourth for a 2-0 lead.

Wilkerson connected to start the fifth. Crosby made a leaping, tumbling catch of Young's sacrifice fly on the right-field warning track, possibly preventing a much bigger inning.

Game notes
Yankees reliever Tanyon Sturtze, on the 15-day disabled list, had an MRI that showed a small rotator cuff tear and bursitis of the right shoulder. He will be sent to Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala., for a second opinion. If Andrews concurs with the initial diagnosis, Sturtze is likely to miss the rest of the season, Torre said. ... The Rangers have won 18 of 28 after beginning the season 2-7.