The early 2000s were a veritable Golden Age of American League shortstops. Seattle’s Alex Rodriguez was, of course, the best of the bunch, but the Junior Circuit also boasted Nomar Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada, and Derek Jeter. When the Red Sox came to town at the end of May in 2000, however, neither team’s star shortstop was in the lineup, with both on the shelf rehabbing from injuries.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, the first-place Red Sox were the ones able to handle the lack of their star more easily, as they handed the defending champs a big loss filled with mistakes and mental errors to start the weekend series.

May 26: Yankees 1, Red Sox 4 (box score)

Record: 26-18 (2nd place, 1.0 GB in AL East)

After an awful start to the season, David Cone looked to be turning his things around in the middle of May, with three straight starts in which he went at least 6.1 innings and allowed three or fewer runs. Those good vibes came to a screeching halt in the first inning against Boston. Jeff Frye led off the inning with a double, and a John Valentin single put runners on the corners with nobody out.

Cone then got Trot Nixon to strike out swinging and got Brian Daubach to ground to the pitcher for a tailor-made inning-ending 1-6-3 double play. Except, uh, that didn’t happen. Cone opted instead to get Frye caught in a rundown trying to score, and while he did get him out, he now had runners on second and third instead of being out of the inning unscathed. Carl Everett immediately punished him for that mistake with a two-run single, and while Cone stopped the bleeding there, the damage was done.

Boston added another pair of runs in the third, with Troy O’Leary lining a two-out single up the middle and Mike Stanley depositing the first pitch he saw into the left field seats to give the Red Sox a 4-0 lead. For his part, Cone settled down from there, and his final line ultimately wound up being relatively solid: four runs on seven hits in seven innings, striking out six and walking four. While far from the ace-like performances the Yankees were used to getting from Coney, that typically gets the job done for the Bombers.

Except, of course, on this night. Facing veteran pitcher Ramón Martínez, who entered the game with a whopping 6.95 ERA and was far from the pitcher he had been with LA, kept the Yankees hitters flummoxed for 7.2 innings of one-run ball. Besides Clay Bellinger’s solo shot to lead off the third inning, the offense did not have an extra-base hit until Paul O’Neill laced a two-out double in the bottom of the eighth to drive Martínez from the game.

Meanwhile, when the Yankees did manage to put together multiple hits, they ruined the rally with a lack of situational awareness. In the bottom of the fifth, for example, Chris Turner, Bellinger, and Ricky Ledée each singled, theoretically loading the bases with nobody out for the 2-3-4 hitters. Turner and Bellinger, however, read Ledée’s line drive single up the middle differently, with Turner holding up in case Everett made the sliding catcher in center and Bellinger recognizing that the ball would land in front of him and trying to snag an extra base. In the end, both runners found themselves at third base, handing Martínez a free out on the TOOTBLAN.

For his part, Jeff Nelson kept the Yankees in the ballgame with a pair of scoreless frames, but even after Martínez was pulled in the eighth, the lineup was unable to get anything going, and they would ultimately fall by the score of 4-1 — and lose a share of first place in the process.

Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.