Stop us if you've heard this one before: The Arizona Diamondbacks lost a hard-fought battle at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx Tuesday night due to a pitching fiasco on their part and epic homers by the home team.
No, this is not a rerun from 2001.
That said, the D-backs' 4-2 loss to the New York Yankees had other similarities to their World Series contest 12 years ago, primarily the fact that the teams took time to honor the victims of a recent terrorist attack prior to the first pitch.
A moment of silence for the tragedy in Boston was held just prior to the start of Tuesday's game, which also honored the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's historic debut in 1947.
Once the game began, Arizona got off to an early two-run lead in the second inning. Gerardo Parra singled (and then stole second base), New York pitcher Ivan Nova then walked Martín Prado, and Paul Goldschmidt walloped an RBI single. A sacrifice fly from Miguel Montero brought home the second run.
Arizona starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy struck out a trio of Yankees in the first three inning and change, but faltered in the fourth when he gave up singles by Chris Stewart and former D-backs hitter Lyle Overbay to set the scene for Robinson Cano's 426-foot three-run homer to put New York on top 3-2. McCarthy got out of the inning with no further damage but was sent to the showers by Arizona skipper Kirk Gibson.
Things stayed scoreless for either team until the bottom of the seventh when Brad Ziegler allowed the Yanks to manufacture another run via base hits by Kevin Youkills and Travis Hafner, a walk of Ichiro Suzuki, and sac fly from Eduardo Núñez.
Arizona will take another crack at securing a win in Yankee Stadium tonight during the second match-up in their three-game interleague series with New York.
Wade Miley (2-0, 2.13 ERA) goes for his third win against CC Sabathia (2-1, 2.25). First pitch is at 4:05 p.m.
