NEW YORK—Yankees captain Derek Jeter hit a seeing-eye wormburner through the left side of the infield for his 2,994th career hit Monday, leaving him just six toppers down the third-base line, Texas Leaguers, or check-swing humpback liners short of 3,000 hits. "These last six chop singles off home plate and difficult-to-field slow rollers to shortstop are going to be hardest for him," said manager Joe Girardi, who wouldn't rule out Jeter grounding a ball off the lip of the infield grass and taking a bad hop off the second baseman's shoulder as a possible route to 3,000. "Derek just needs a couple of swinging bunts and a few official scorers to mistakenly give him a hit on what is clearly an error, and he'll join the immortals that hung around just long enough to reach this tremendous milestone." When asked if he would take grounding the ball off the pitcher's back foot and the pitcher not being able to find it on the field as his 3,000th hit, Jeter answered, "Yes. God, anything."