Sports in general are a constant roller coaster. One night, a pitcher can look like an ace, carving through batting lineups like a hot knife through butter. Another night, they can look incapable of finding the strike zone and getting batters out. For the Yankees on May 20, 2000, a certain reliever, who was one of Joe Torre’s go-to guys to set up Mariano Rivera and even close games out himself, found himself in the latter scenario. Not only was it a bad night for said reliever, but it was also at the cost of a win for the Yankees.

May 20: Yankees 2, Cleveland 3 (box score)

Record: 24-15 (2nd place, 1.0 GB in AL East)

The Yankees started the game off hot against Cleveland starter Chuck Finley, who eventually became an All-Star at 37 years old later in the season. Chuck Knoblauch, the almost-always leadoff man for the Bombers, saw a pitch he liked from the veteran lefty and sent it into left field for a double to begin the game. Bernie Williams, who was in the second spot in the lineup for this game with Derek Jeter not playing and prospect Alfonso Soriano taking his spot at shortstop, singled, putting Knoblauch at third base. Paul O’Neill was the first out of the game, swinging at strike three to bring up Shane Spencer, who hit a sacrifice fly to left field to bring home a run and give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead.

David Cone, whose struggles have been noted plenty of times throughout our coverage of the 2000 season, took the mound for the Yankees and pitched well in the first, only allowing one runner to reach via a walk and setting the tone for the rest of his outing.

The two starters settled in following the first inning, going inning for inning without allowing any runs. Some men reached base via hits and walks, but touching home plate was an issue for both squads through the early parts of the game, outside of the sacrifice fly in the first.

To start the middle innings, the Yankees tacked on another run thanks to the work of Knoblauch once again, with a double to set up Williams and O’Neill with one out. Williams grounded out, but O’Neill came through with a single through the infield, and the speedy Knoblauch came around to score from second. The inning ended once again with no more damage done despite O’Neill advancing to second via a wild pitch.

Cleveland struggled to get any offense going against Cone, who pitched a solid 6.1 innings, allowing only four hits through six innings of work. However, the seventh inning brought some trouble for the veteran righty. The inning’s leadoff man and Cleveland’s seventh hitter, Richie Sexson, smacked a solo home run to left-center field to bring the Yankees’ lead to just one run, and after Cone gave up a double to Enrique Wilson, the leash was short. After a bunt groundout that moved the runner to third, it was time for Torre to pull Cone from his respectable outing. Southpaw Mike Stanton came in to face Kenny Lofton, and he made a productive out, bringing home the runner from third, counting it against Cone and tying the game.

The Yankees only amassed one hit in the final two innings before the bottom of the ninth gave Cleveland a chance to end the game against Jeff Nelson.

The righty replaced Stanton in the eighth and faced three batters, allowing two of them to get on base with a walk and a hit but ultimately working out of the jam with a line-drive double play. But if that wasn’t a sign of things to come in the ninth, then there isn’t much else that could be.

Nelson started the bottom of the ninth with a swinging strikeout, a good momentum booster in such a high-leverage spot. But a walk gave Cleveland back what was taken from them. Nelson worked a fly out to bring the game one out away from extra innings, but that’s where catastrophe struck.

Another walk was issued to Lofton, putting two men on base. Then, Omar Vizquel stepped into the batter’s box and watched Nelson throw a wild pitch, moving both runners up 90 feet. Then, a third walk in the inning loaded the bases for Roberto Alomar. Torre struck with Nelson, though, despite the poor control and command of the baseball that was obviously being demonstrated, and it bit the Yankees in the behind. Alomar worked Cleveland’s fourth walk of the inning from Nelson on his 43rd pitch and won the game on a walk-off, literally.

Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.