Aaron Small has wiped out one of the “TBA” slots in the Yankees’ creaky 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 straight start since the Yankees brought him up from the minors, pitching a career-high seven innings and getting four RBI from Gary Sheffield in a 6-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins yesterday.

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’s 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,” Joe Torre said. “Right now, he seems very confident in what he does, and it’s taken him a long time.”

Small has just five starts among his 149 big league appearances and had pitched in just eight major league games since 1998 before this month.

Al Leiter and Small have two of the spots until the return of Pavano and Jaret Wright, who has been sidelined since April. With one slot still unfilled, the Yankees might use a string of relievers Saturday against the Angels between starts by Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson.

“We’ve been scuffling a little bit with trying to find a rotation,” pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre said.”To be honest with you, my rotation doesn’t go any farther than tomorrow.”

Tom Gordon pitched the eighth, and Mariano Rivera finished for his 26th save – all in a row since failing in his first two chances of the season. New York closed within 1 1/2 games of idle first-place Boston in the AL East.

Sheffield hooked a three-run homer just inside the left-field foul pole in the first inning off Joe Mays (5-6).

After Minnesota tied it on Luis Rodriguez’s two-run single in the second and Jones’s double, Sheffield put the Yankees ahead for good with a runscoring single in the fifth. He is batting an AL-best .396 (38-for-96) with runners in scoring position this year.

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Kevin Brown went on the disabled list yesterday for the 14th time in his career, and the Yankees pitcher will go to California to be examined by back expert Dr. Robert Watkins.

Brown has a lumbar strain, according to the Yankees, who are unsure whether Brown will be sidelined for the rest of the season.

“Hopefully, in the next 24 or 48 hours,we’ll have more of a clue to that,” Torre said before yesterday’s game. “Hopefully, that’s not the case because I know that’s certainly not what he wants, and it’s certainly not what we want or need.”

Late yesterday, the Yankees agreed to acquire pitcher Shawn Chacon, 27, from the Colorado Rockies for a pair of minor leaguers, filling the opening in their injury-ravaged rotation, according to the Associated Press. Chacon is 1-7 with a 4.09 ERA this season.

In exchange for Chacon, the Rockies get minor leaguers Ramon Ramirez and Eduardo Sierra.