ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Reuters) - The Tampa Bay Rays slowed down the surging New York Yankees with a 6-2 victory on Tuesday as they chased visiting pitcher CC Sabathia after five-plus innings.

The Yankees had won 10 of their previous 11 games but could not overcome a 3-0 Rays lead.

The hosts collected all six of their runs and nine hits off Sabathia (10-7) before he left with two out in the sixth inning.

Scott Kazmir (5-6) got the win, boosting his confidence by allowing just five hits and one run over seven innings.

"That's as good of a game as I've seen out of him in maybe a year," Rays manager Joe Maddon told reporters after Kazmir recorded his first win since early May.

Left-hander Kazmir was delighted: "I had a good rhythm going, fastball was working. I was hitting both sides of the plate.

"It was a very big game for us, so I just wanted to give our team a chance to win out there."

Third-placed Tampa Bay, the defending American League champions, moved to within 6 games of leader New York in the American League East. Boston trail the Yankees by 2 games.

Tampa Bay scored once in the second on a sacrifice fly and added two more runs in the third on Carl Crawford's RBI triple and a throwing error by Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

New York got one run back on Hideki Matsui's run-scoring single in the fourth, but Evan Longoria homered for the Rays in the fifth and they scored two more runs in the sixth to make it 6-1.

A Matsui double in the ninth that drove in Rodriguez accounted for the Yankees' final run.

Sabathia was befuddled by his performance, after striking out six and walking two while allowing five earned runs.

"I don't know what to say," he said. "Not getting ahead of guys, putting myself in bad counts, not finishing guys when it wasn't a hitter's count."

(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina. Editing by N. Ananthanarayanan)