NEW YORK -- Befitting his legendary clutch status, Derek Jeter hit a home run to become the first Yankee in team history with 3,000 career hits -- and then he won the game.

Jeter capped a 5-for-5 day with the go-ahead RBI single in the eighth, leading the New York Yankees to a 5-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays at a sun-splashed and soldout Yankee Stadium.

"If I had tried to write it and given it to somebody, I wouldn't have even bought it, to be quite honest with you," Jeter said of his day. "It is just one of those special days. I've been lying to you guys for a long time saying I wasn't nervous and there is no pressure. There was a lot of pressure to do it here."

In the third inning, Jeter nailed a 3-2 curveball off Rays starter David Price. When he saw the ball leave the park, Jeter clapped his hands.

"To be honest with you, I was pretty relieved," Jeter said.

The ball was recovered by a fan, 23-year-old Christian Lopez, from Highland Mills, N.Y. Lopez, who works for Verizon Wireless, gave Jeter the ball. Lopez received season tickets for the rest of the season and playoffs from the Yankees, as well as autographs.

In the eighth, Jeter knocked his RBI single passed a drawn-in infield.

"That was him," said ex-Yankee manager Joe Torre, who represented the Commissioner's Office, on Saturday. "I don't care how much his ability has diminished, I guess you could say. At 37, it is no surprise that you are not as good as you were at 27. But he still scares me if I'm in the other dugout."

Following the game, commissioner Bud Selig called Jeter to congratulate him.

Jeter is the 28th player in major league history with 3,000 hits. Jeter joined the 14 players who have done it with one team.

In the fifth, Jeter added a double, moving him past Roberto Clemente for 27th all-time. Then in the eighth, he added the game-winning hit, No. 3,003 of his career.

"It would have been really, really awkward to be out there doing interviews and waving to the crowd after the game if we had lost," Jeter said. "So that was going through my mind in my last at-bat there. It is nice to get a hit, but we needed to win this game."