When your team comes to the plate for their last ups in a game and they trail by any more than two runs, it’s hard to really generate any real excitement. Obviously, anything can happen, and there will be a couple of big late comebacks every year, three outs is often just way too little time to do anything substantial.

Yankees fans watching on June 25, 2000 probably wouldn’t have been expecting all that much when the Yankees came up for the top of the ninth down 8-1 against the White Sox, a team that had rolled over them this year with a 5-1 record. New York’s Win Expectancy going into the inning sat at literally a rounded zero percent, after all.

However, the Yankees made quite a run at it, and very nearly pulled off one of the crazier comebacks in MLB history, falling just one run short.

June 25: Yankees 7, White Sox 8 (box score)

Record: 37-33 (2 GB in AL East)

With the current day Yankees going through a “June gloom” of their own, the 2000 team could certainly relate. Coming into the June 25th game in Chicago, the Bombers had gone 9-11 to that point in June, and had lost seven of their last 10. While they had won the day before, this game didn’t look like it would do much to change the mood early.

After the Yankees were kept off the board in the top of the first, Andy Pettitte took the mound in the bottom of the inning. While he got José Valentín to ground out to start the frame, both Tony Graffanino and Frank Thomas picked up singles. Magglio Ordóñez then tripled into the corner in right, giving Chicago a pair of runs early.

The Yankees couldn’t answer in either the second or third, and the White Sox soon struck again. Valentín and Graffanino went single, double to start the inning, but Pettitte then came back and got Thomas to fly out. Opting to set up the double play, the Yankees intentionally walked Ordóñez. That didn’t completely work out, as Paul Konerko then punched a single to left to plate two more runs.

The Yankees’ offense put some runners on against White Sox starter Mike Sirotka in the early innings, but couldn’t get much done. In the fourth inning, Paul O’Neill got ejected after striking out swinging, having been upset at some calls earlier in the at-bat. Adding to that, Scott Brosius exited the game in the fifth inning with a hamstring injury that didn’t require an IL stint, but did keep him on the bench for a few days.

They finally got on the board in the fifth, but even that required some help. Shane Spencer and Tino Martinez each hit singles to start the inning, but a Brosius double played erased Martinez and left the Yankees down to their last out. Sirotka bailed them out with a wild pitch that allowed Spencer to get home and get them on the board.

With Pettitte still going in the sixth, the top of the White Sox order did damage again. Valentín led off the frame with a single, as Graffanino bunted him over to second. Pettitte then walked Thomas, which would be the end of his day. Jason Grimsley came in for him, but proceeded to walk Ordóñez on four pitches. While Grimsley then got Konerko to hit a grounder, they could only get a force out at second, allowing a run to score. Jeff Abbott followed that with a single, scoring another run.

Pettitte ended up getting both of the runs put on his ledger, as he finished the day with six allowed on 10 hits in 5.2 innings. That ballooned his ERA to 4.90 for the season. While that’s not as high as it might seem when you consider the era, he was still very much struggling.

In the eighth inning, Ordóñez continued his big day with a two-run homer. In that moment, that would’ve just seemed like Chicago tacking on, but those two runs ended up being quite important.

Sirotka ended up putting in a nice outing, allowing just that one run in eight innings. The White Sox then turned things over to future All-Star Keith Foulke, who would put together a perfectly good year as their closer in 2000 … just not on this day.

After hitting Chuck Knoblauch to start the ninth, Foulke then allowed three consecutive singles, the last of which, from Bernie Williams, scored a run. Although Foulke finally got an out by striking out Jorge Posada, Spencer added another single picking up another run. Martinez then hit a grounder, but the White Sox only could get one out on the play, scoring yet another run and cutting the Chicago lead to 8-4.

Things suddenly then got very real when Ricky Ledée pinch-hit for Clay Bellinger and walloped a three-run home run. Out of nowhere, the Yankees had cut Chicago’s lead to one run, and the White Sox had to go back to the bullpen to replace Foulke, whose two-out, six-run outing marked perhaps the worst day of his great career.

After all that, naturally the last out of the game came without too much drama. Bob Howry got José Vizcaíno to strike out looking, leaving the Yankees’ comeback one run short.

Officially, the Yankees’ win expectancy in the ninth never got above four percent. Still though, when you go into the ninth inning down seven runs and end up putting a scare into a team, that’s not nothing.

Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.