(My Sportsbook) - Lefty John Danks makes his first start as a 24-year-old tonight when the Chicago White Sox visit Tropicana Field for the first of four straight games with the team that eliminated them from the 2008 playoffs - the Tampa Bay Rays.

Danks allowed seven hits and three runs over 6 2/3 innings to score Chicago's lone win in Game 3 of the best-of-five American League Division Series, which they lost in four games.

He opened this season on April 9 with a scoreless six-inning stint against Kansas City, allowing three hits and striking out five while getting a no- decision in Chicago's 2-1 loss.

He turned 24 on April 15.

In 2008 against the Rays, Danks was 2-1 in three starts with a 1.86 earned run average in 19 1/3 innings, holding Tampa Bay batters to a .219 average.

For the hosts, lanky right-hander Jeff Niemann, who stands 6-foot-9 and weighs 260 pounds, makes his second start of the season in the Rays' No. 5 rotation slot.

A veteran of just five games and two starts before this season, Niemann opened 2009 on April 11 with an inglorious 5 1/3 inning stint at Baltimore, allowing six hits and six runs and walking four.

Five of the runs came in the first inning, however, before he settled down and getting into the sixth.

Niemann faced the White Sox once in 2008, dropping a start after allowing five hits and five earned runs in 3 1/3 innings, racking up a 13.50 ERA.

On Wednesday in Detroit, Armando Galarraga went 6 1/3 innings without giving up a run to help the Tigers blank the White Sox, 9-0, and split a rain- shortened two-game series.

Jose Contreras (0-2) got the loss after giving up five runs -- four earned -- on five hits with two walks and four strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings of action for the White Sox, who had a three-game winning streak stopped. Paul Konerko reached base twice with a single and a walk.

In St. Petersburg, Derek Jeter went 2-for-4 and knocked in the game-winning run with a single in the ninth inning as the New York Yankees held on to edge the Rays, 4-3, in the finale of a three-game series at Tropicana Field.

Carlos Pena hit a solo homer, while B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford added back- to-back RBI doubles for the Rays.

Andy Sonnanstine, who also did not figure in the decision, went five innings, giving up two runs on four hits with three strikeouts and one walk. Troy Percival (0-1) was tagged with the loss after surrendering one run on two hits.