In his very first start in pinstripes, April 5th at Yankee Stadium, the Bombers got him one run in the bottom of the first, and he would leave in the eighth with only that one run on the board. Yankees 1-0. In Baltimore, May 6th, Yankees 2-1. Against the Red Sox on May 24th, 2-1. A Subway Series game at Shea, 2-1. And who could forget September 2 in Boston, one strike away from a perfect game... but still, Yankees 1-0. Or more significant still, October 13th in Oakland, a 1-0 game the Yankees had to win or call it quits for the year.

Having lived through so many nail biters with Mike Mussina, Yankees fans had to feel good when Mussina took the mound in the bottom of the first in Phoenix with a one run lead. Curt Schilling, who had only hit one batter all year, clipped Derek Jeter on the wrist with a pitch (you could hear him yell "ow!" on the broadcast) and Bernie Williams served a ball into the corner that just stayed fair for an RBI double.

Unfortunately for Mussina, his normal pinpoint control was left behind in the abnormal nine days rest between his ALCS start against Seattle and Game One of the World Series. He struck out four men in the first two innings, but balls were straying from the corners to the middle of the plate.

The Diamondbacks were hitting them.

Craig Counsell, who has excelled this October, took Mussina deep in the first inning to tie the score. In the second no damage was done. But in the third, shortstop Tony Womack lead off and Mussina hit him with a pitch. Was it retaliation for Jeter? We'll never know, but Womack was on base, and when Luis Gonzalez hit a home run on a 1-2 pitch the score jumped to 3-1 Arizona.

David Justice, playing right field in place of Paul O'Neill because of his good numbers against Schilling, took his eye off a ball and had it go off his glove. By the time the inning ended, with the ninth man in the inning at the plate, Schilling himself working the count full and then grounding out, the D-backs were up 5-1 and Mussina's night was over.

It was that kind of a night for the Yankees. Justice ended up striking out all three times he faced Schilling and misplayed another ball in the unfamiliar right field of Bank One Ballpark. Brosius made an error in the fourth that opened the floodgates for four more runs against Randy Choate, a last minute substitution on Joe Torre's roster in place of Mark Wohlers. Choate looked remarkably relaxed on the mound, compared to his usual frenetic, nervous colt self, and he almost had a good outing.

Almost.

On two out, Gonzalez doubled down the line--one of a flurry of lucky doubles in the game. Reggie Sanders was intentionally walked so that the lefty sidearming Choate could face lefty swinging Steve Finley. Finley hit a ground ball that got past the dive of Alfonso Soriano and plated Gonzalez. Then Matt Williams hit one down the line that bounced in front of Brosius and went off his glove. By the time the carnage ended it was 9-1 Diamondbacks, and it would remain that way the rest of the game.

Sterling Hitchcock worked three one-hit innings of relief, and Mike Stanton got in a one-two-three himself. But the Yankee bats were unable to do anything against Schilling, who left after seven, or Morgan or Swindell who tidied up the eighth and ninth for him. It was the first time since the 1960s that the Yankees had been held to only three hits in a World Series game, that time against the Dodgers. The same Dodgers who sent Koufax and Drysdale to the mound that year, the last best "one two punch" in baseball before Schilling and The Big Unit.

The Dodgers did win that series, by the way, but everyone should know by now not to write epitaphs for the Yankees until after they are eliminated. Even if they go down 0-2 with a loss to Johnson tonight? Hey, we've seen it before. Expect a battle tonight.

This article originally appeared at YankeeBaseball.net.