Rays wallop Yankees

NEW YORK -- A bad day for Randy Johnson quickly turned into a record-setting one for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Tomas Perez tied a major league mark with four doubles, going 5 for 5 and leading Tampa Bay to a 19-6 rout of Johnson and the New York Yankees yesterday.

``They killed us," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. ``It was just a day we'd like to forget. It wasn't a whole lot of fun. It felt like it lasted a day and a half."

Damon Hollins homered to snap an 0-for-18 skid and drove in a career-best five runs for the Devil Rays, who matched a franchise record for runs. They earned their first road win this month and emphatically ended New York's four-game winning streak.

The only visiting team to score more than 19 runs in a game at Yankee Stadium was the Cleveland Indians in a 22-0 win Aug. 31, 2004.

``It's just one win. There's nothing special about it," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. ``I expect them to be very difficult to beat tomorrow."

Jonny Gomes, Jorge Cantu, and Travis Lee also connected as Tampa Bay equaled a season high with 17 hits and won for only the fifth time in 19 games. All that offense gave righthander Jae Seo his first win with the Devil Rays.

Derek Jeter and Jason Giambi hit consecutive homers in the first inning for the Yankees, but the game took a striking turn from there. New York gave up 19 runs for the second time this year, having lost, 19-1, in Cleveland July 4.

Johnson (11-9) was tagged for a season-high nine runs -- six earned -- and six hits in 3 1/3 innings, matching his shortest outing this year. He walked three and did not strike out a batter for the first time in 49 starts since May 15, 2005, at Oakland.

This was the first time in nine starts that Johnson failed to last at least six innings.

``I had a bad day at work. Just a bad game. Bad location, and I paid the price," he said. ``Everything happened with two out. I just couldn't get the third out."

The Big Unit had two outs in the second and a 2-0 lead when Johnny Damon failed to make a running catch of Hollins's drive to left-center. The ball squirted out of Damon's glove for an error, leading to three unearned runs.

Tampa Bay never stopped hitting after that, and the Yankees dropped 1 1/2 games behind first-place Boston in the AL East.