ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. » Johnny Damon circled the bases and disappeared into a pack of teammates waiting at home plate to celebrate Tampa Bay’s first home win of the season.

The Rays rallied in dramatic fashion to beat the Minnesota Twins 4-3 in extra innings last night, scoring twice to tie it in the ninth and overcoming another deficit in the 10th to win on Damon’s one-out, two-run homer that barely cleared the wall in right field to give the struggling defending AL East champions their third straight win.

"It’s nice to see them celebrating. … We needed something like that to really get us going," said manager Joe Maddon, whose sputtering offense entered the ninth with just four hits off Twins starter Carl Pavano. "The primary reason we’ve been struggling has been hitting. So when hitting comes through in the end like that to pick us up, that’s nice."

Pavano pitched eight shutout innings, but was denied the victory when Minnesota closer Joe Nathan gave up a two-run double to Matt Joyce in the ninth.

The Twins regained the lead in the 10th on Danny Valencia’s RBI single off Kyle Farnsworth (1-0), but once again the bullpen couldn’t finish off the Rays.

Sam Fuld singled with one out in the Tampa Bay 10th off Matt Capps (1-1) and Damon — settling into a role as the Rays’ primary designated hitter following Manny Ramirez’s sudden retirement — followed with his third homer of the season, driving the ball into the first row of the right-field seats.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire tried to keep the late collapse in perspective. Afterward, he also revealed the Twins have lost All-Star catcher Joe Mauer to the disabled list because of weakness in his legs.

"You just keep playing. It’s part of the game. It does happen. Got two pretty good arms out there that can finish games and tonight it just didn’t work out," Gardenhire said.

"We have to keep battling. We’re doing better. We’re swinging the bats. We had plenty of chances and we missed a lot of opportunities to score more runs. That’s probably where the game was lost more than anything else."

A season-low crowd of 10,042 at Tropicana Field cheered Damon all around the bases. The Rays danced and pranced back to the clubhouse, where the celebration continued.

"Going up to that last at-bat, I’m 0-for-4 in the game and really couldn’t do anything off Pavano. But you learn how to forget about it," Damon said. "You learn how to be in the moment, and that’s what I did. It wasn’t that bad of a pitch by Capps. Fortunately I got enough of it."