BALTIMORE—Depending on how you look at it, Derek Jeter's four hits on Sunday prove that the Yankees' captain is still a force atop the lineup who helped his team to a 6-3 win—or prove that he was born under a good sign.

The first hit led off the game, a bouncing single up the middle that slipped just past the glove of Baltimore shortstop Cesar Izturis. Jeter would score the game's first run on Curtis Granderson's home run.

Derek Jeter notched four hits—though all four were grounders, and two were very weak—on Sunday. Associated Press

The second hit was a lanced grounder down the line, one that shot past Orioles first baseman Derrek Lee and caromed into the corner as Jeter tried to stretch it into a double. He was just barely safe at second—with only his second extra-base hit of the entire season—and would be stranded when Granderson flew out.

The third hit, an infield dribbler in the 10th inning that third baseman Mark Reynolds couldn't reach in time, eventually got Jeter all the way around to third—where he tried, and failed, to score the game-winning run on a fly ball by Alex Rodriguez. But it was a notable hit nonetheless—it put Jeter into 31st place on the all-time hit list, passing Frank Robinson.

The fourth hit was almost identical to the third: a dribbler that barely went 15 feet down the third-base line, equivalent to a bunt—and again, just out of reach of Reynolds, who threw the ball away as the Yankees scored a badly needed insurance run to give them a 5-3 lead.

Four hits in five at-bats, bringing Jeter's average from an abysmal .221 to a respectable .257. That's looking on the bright side.

Looking at it from the other perspective, all four hits were grounders, two of them very weak.

Still, manager Joe Girardi thinks his shortstop has been making better contact of late—he is simply poking all his balls right at fielders, particularly the right fielder.

"I just told him, I said, 'Jeet, you have to find a different place to hit,' " Girardi said—preferably not directly at the right fielder.

"The guy has been standing there for years," Girardi joked.

Then Girardi got serious, saying that Jeter is looking better as he makes adjustments to his swing to compensate for the fact that he is 36 years old.

"I actually think he is swinging the bat better," Girardi said. "He looks more comfortable to me, too."

No matter how he got them, Jeter's hits made a big difference Sunday in the Yankees' extra-inning victory.

Retread Freddy Garcia delivered his second-straight dominant start, pitching six innings of shutout, two-hit ball to send the Yankees out to an early lead.

Garcia's brilliant pitching was squandered by an uncharacteristically shaky Yankees bullpen: Joba Chamberlain gave up two quick runs in relief of Garcia, and Mariano Rivera then blew his second save in a week to set the stage for the Yankees to win in 11 innings.

Following a 40-minute rain delay, Robinson Cano slashed a double to left, then stole third on a botched pickoff attempt. He scored the go-ahead run on a Russell Martin single, and then Jeter's fourth hit of the game extended New York's lead. Martin would then score the game's final run on a Granderson single.

However he got them, Jeter now has 2,945 hits, only 55 away from becoming the 28th player in baseball history to reach the magical 3,000 mark.

He can only hope that No. 3,000 makes it out of the infield.