Small Comes Up Huge for Yankees

Aaron Small has taken care of one of the TBA slots in the New York Yankees’ depleted pitching rotation, earning a job for now after spending most of the last 6 1/2 years in the minor leagues.

Small won his second start in a row since the Yankees brought him up from triple-A Columbus, pitching a career-high seven innings and getting four RBIs from Gary Sheffield in a 6-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.

“There’s times I looked around, but never in awe,” Small said. “In Columbus, we had about 1,200 people and here we had, what, about 50,000, so it’s a little different.”

Small (2-0) hadn’t started a major league game since 1996 before last week, when the 33-year-old right-hander helped New York to an 8-4 victory at Texas, his first big league win in seven years.

He was given a 3-0 lead against the Twins, wasted it, then retired his final 12 batters after Jacque Jones’ tying double in the fourth. He gave up three runs and six hits, walked none and struck out one, starting 16 of 26 batters with strikes.

“Until we see something that makes us uncomfortable, you certainly want to keep looking at him,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said. “Right now he seems very confident in what he does, and it’s taken him a long time. And guys who stay with it to this point, the determination is there, the know-how, the intelligence on how to pitch.”

Small mixed a fastball, slider and changeup. He has made only five starts in his 149 big league appearances and had pitched in only eight major league games since 1998 before this month, when injuries to Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano and Chien-Ming Wang forced the Yankees to search for starters.

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Texas 2, Baltimore 1 -- David Dellucci hit a tiebreaking ninth-inning homer, and Alfonso Soriano also homered to lead the Rangers at Baltimore.

Texas took three of four from the Orioles, who lost pitcher Sidney Ponson because of a bruised right thumb. The Orioles have lost eight of nine.

Ricardo Rodriguez pitched seven-plus innings for Texas, giving up one run and six hits. Kameron Loe (5-3) worked out of a jam in the eighth and Francisco Cordero got three outs for his 24th save.

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Cleveland 6, Seattle 5 -- Pinch-hitter Jose Hernandez hit a two-out RBI single in the top of the eighth inning for the Indians.

Jeff Liefer led off the inning with a double to center off J.J. Putz (4-4). Pinch-runner Brandon Phillips moved to third on Aaron Boone’s sacrifice. Jeff Nelson struck out Casey Blake, but Hernandez grounded a single to left off Ron Villone to score Phillips.

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Tampa Bay 10, Kansas City 5 -- Carl Crawford hit a two-run homer during a five-run fifth inning and the Devil Rays overcame a five-run deficit at St. Petersburg, Fla. The big inning gave them a 7-5 lead after falling behind, 5-0, in the second.