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Slipping away D'backs pay heavy price for missed scoring chances
Updated: Friday November 02, 2001 1:03 AM
NEW YORK -- The Arizona Diamondbacks had a little pasta afterward, dressed, chatted with about a billion reporters who asked the same three questions over and over again and then headed for their hotel in the first wee hours of November. All the while they insisted they were none the worse off after a stunning loss to the New York Yankees that evened the World Series at two games apiece. "So what?" first baseman Mark Grace said in the ruins of the Yankees' 4-3 win. "It's 2-2." That's what Grace said all right. What he actually was thinking was this: "Damn! It's 2-2." The Diamondbacks were one measly out away from a 3-1 lead in this Series on Wednesday night, one stinking little out from a virtual backbreaker of a victory, when the Yankees did to them what the Yankees have done to so many over the years. Well, maybe the Yankees even outdid themselves this time around. A two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to tie the score. A dramatic two-out homer in the bottom of the 10th to win. And now the Diamondbacks, up 2-0 coming into New York, are positively reeling. They say they're not. They smile and shrug their shoulders and give it the old, "We'll get 'em tomorrow" stuff. But you don't lose a game like that, you don't cough up a virtual sure thing, and not pay for it down the road. Somewhere. Sometime. "It sucks," admitted Arizona starter Curt Schilling, denied the win when closer Byung-Hyun Kim gave up the tying homer to Tino Martinez and the winning homer to Derek Jeter. "You're winning 3-1 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and you end up losing."
And then he said, "It didn't work out," like the loss was some kind of fallen soufflé. In a lot of ways, the Diamondbacks are still in pretty phenomenal shape. They have to face Yankees ace Mike Mussina in Game 5 on Thursday, but the Diamondbacks already have beaten him once. And they have Randy Johnson going in Game 6 and, if needed, Schilling for Game 7. But, really, this one was a cold smack of reality, a slap in the face coming out of the cold Bronx night. The Yankees now have shown they can win a game Schilling starts, even if they can't beat Schilling. Mussina will no doubt be better this time around. And Andy Pettitte gets Game 6 and Roger Clemens is up for Game 7. Both have pitched well in this Series. We got us a real Series here now. "Our team is not worried about this," insisted Arizona left fielder Luis Gonzalez. "We'll come right back tomorrow." The worst part about the whole blowing-it thing is that Arizona should have never been in a position to blow it in the first place. The Diamondbacks had their first batter reach base in four of the first five innings. They had the bases loaded with one out in the first. They had runners on first and third with one out in the third. These weren't simple scoring opportunities. These were darn-near scoring guarantees. "We had chances, no question," second baseman Craig Counsell said. "Even the scoring opportunities are not frequent in these games. He [Yankees starter Orlando Hernandez] got in trouble. He just found a way to get out of it." Matt Williams left five men on base in his first two at-bats by striking out (looking) and hitting into a fielder's choice. The Diamondbacks hit into three double plays. They had a runner thrown out at the plate. They were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position as they entered the eighth inning. And, still, they were leading by two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. And they lost. "It was kind of surreal at first, like it didn't really happen," catcher Damian Miller said, who said the loss was probably "the biggest letdown I've ever had." Like the rest of the Diamondbacks, Miller said the team will be back, that the players will shrug off the loss and come back in Game 5 Thursday ready to go at the Yankees again. "This is a tough loss. I'm not going to lie to you," Gonzalez said. "But we'll come right back [Thursday]." They'll come back. They have to. But it will be tough to bounce back from this one. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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