Huff hurts the Yankees

Aubrey Huff shone for the Baltimore Orioles in their win against the New York Yankees.

NEW YORK // The Baltimore Orioles upset the New York Yankees for the second night in a row as Aubrey Huff had four hits and four RBIs to lead his team to a 7-6 win at the Yankee Stadium. The last-placed Orioles routed the Yankees 13-4 on Monday, and repeated the feat on Tuesday as they survived a fightback attempt in the ninth inning to deal New York another costly loss in its bid to get back into contention in the AL East.

As a consequence of the loss New York fell four games behind the first place Tampa Bay Rays and two shy of the Boston Red Sox following their seventh loss in 11 games against the Orioles this season. "I guess we play a little bit better with play- off contending teams," Huff said. "It seems like we step it up a little bit more and get a little bit more focused." The Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera continued his success against the Yankees, although he was ejected in the eighth inning after hitting Alex Rodriguez on the shoulder the first time he came up after earlier hitting a home run.

"It surprised me," Cabrera said of the ejection. "I'm not going to deliberately put anybody on base in a game like this so I didn't think I would be ejected for that." Cabrera conceded only three runs and eight hits in his seven-plus innings, striking out two and walking two. He has a 100 per cent record from three matches against New York this year and the Yankees will be glad to see the back of him at the end of this series of games

"It's always great to pitch here," Cabrera said. "Yankee Stadium is a special place." Kevin Millar also homered for the Orioles and Melvin Mora added two hits and two RBIs to secure the triumph. New York rallied for three runs in the ninth to pull to 7-6, but George Sherrill struck out Robinson Cano and Wilson Betemit with a runner on second base to record the save. The Yankee starter Darrell Rasner allowed four runs on eight hits over six innings to take the loss. New York trailed 6-1 after seven innings, before almost pulling off the great escape.

Rodriguez's solo homer in the sixth was his 22nd of the season and 540th of his career, while Jason Giambi and Bobby Abreu each had three hits for the Yankees. "We need to win games like these," Rodriguez said. "It is very frustrating." * Reuters