PHOENIX -- Steve Finley didn't quite get all of it.

Mike Mussina had tubed the 2-0 fastball and Finley drilled the pitch deep into the gap in right-center. But it didn't quite have enough loft -- not like Luis Gonzalez's mammoth 406-foot blast down the right-field line two batters earlier, or Craig Counsell's poke into the second row of the right-field bleachers in the first inning.

No, this looked like just another hard out, the kind of hit that has batters shaking their heads as they head back to the dugout, wondering how Ted Williams once hit .400 or why this only shows up as a routine "F-9" in the scorebook.

	David Justice watches a third-inning flyball hit by Steve Finley fall to the ground. The play was ruled a double.

Yankees right fielder David Justice raced after it. It wasn't an easy play, but the kind major-league outfielders make with routine regularity. He'd been playing straightaway for the left-handed-hitting Finley. Justice -- always an underrated defensive outfielder -- got there. He was on the warning track, close to the wall, but wasn't at full speed and a harsh collision with an advertisement or a center fielder wasn't imminent.

Justice stuck his glove out to make the catch. Reggie Sanders, the runner on first base, stopped at second base, ready to retreat to first.

Finley hustled around first base, ready to burst into second -- just in case. You never know, right?

Mussina would have his second out of the third inning. True, he was behind 3-1 due to the two home runs, but he could escape this inning, shut down the Diamondbacks the rest of the way and let the Yankees claw back against Curt Schilling.

Clank.

The ball bounced off the heel of Justice's glove. Sanders ended up at third. Finley stood on second. The crowd erupted in cheer. Yankee fans groaned, undoubtedly yelling that "Paulie would have caught it!"

But Paul O'Neill wasn't playing right field on this night. David Justice was, in the lineup because of his history of success against Schilling (he was 10-for-28 with four home runs off Schilling heading into Game 1).

"I just missed it," Justice said. "I knew I was close to the wall and I took my eye off it for just a second."

Mussina still had a chance to escape the jam. With Matt Williams up, the infield was pulled in. Williams lofted a shallow fly into right-center. Justice and center fielder Bernie Williams raced after it. Both had a play. Justice has a stronger throwing arm than the weak-armed Williams, but Williams called him off. Sanders tagged and scored easily to make it 4-1.

"You may not be as sure as you would be in familiar grounds," Yankees manager Joe Torre said in reference to Justice's misplay in an unfamiliar ballpark for the Yankees.

A dropped flyball? A bad decision by Williams? This looked like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in June, not the New York Yankees in October. From 1996 through 2000, the Yankees had allowed only nine unearned runs total in the postseason. They allowed two in this inning, as Damian Miller scooted a double just over the corner of the third-base bag to make it 5-1.

They would allow three more unearned runs the next inning. Five in one game. Heck, this wasn't the Devil Rays in June, this was the Devil Rays in the first game of spring training. And this certainly doesn't happen to the Yankees in the postseason. Their opponents -- who allowed 38 unearned runs from 1996 through 2000 -- are the ones who usually let a botched play on defense turn into three runs for the Yankees.

Nobody would disagree that O'Neill is the better outfielder than Justice, who started just eight games in right field during the regular season and had only 13 flyball chances during that time. O'Neill is sure-handed (only one error in his postseason career) and always seems to make the tough catch when needed. But O'Neill is slowed by his recovery from a stress fracture in his ankle in early September, and combined with Justice's career numbers against Schilling, Torre benched his veteran right fielder.

"A lot of my moves worked -- for the other team," Torre said.

Every move Torre makes in October usually turns to gold. But not on this night. Not on a night when a Gold Glove was needed in right field instead of the iron glove of David Justice.

David Schoenfield is the baseball editor at ESPN.com.