Sat., October 27 The Diamondbacks have to score a few runs off Mike Mussina. They really haven't scored in the postseason. If you throw out Game 4 of the NLCS where they received 11 gift-wrapped runs against Atlanta, with the Braves making four errors, Arizona has only scored 21 runs in nine games -- that's 2.3 runs per game. Sure, they've faced good pitching, but they are going to face more good pitching in the World Series. It's imperative they get a few runs for Curt Schilling to work with. Schilling gives up an occasional home run, but if he gets a few runs to work with, he can be more aggressive and not worry about a solo shot beating him. Psychologically, it's important for the D-Backs to win Game 1, because if they don't there will be an enormous amount of pressure on Randy Johnson for Game 2. If the Diamondbacks go limping out of here 0-2, with Brian Anderson and Miguel Batista starting Games 3 and 4, a lot of people think they could go four-and-out. If they get Game 1, Johnson can relax, knowing Schilling will go Game 5, which means the D-Backs would have Schilling and Johnson on the hill for three of the first five games with a good chance of bringing it back to Arizona. The Yankees have to play Yankee baseball. They don't chase balls out of the strike zone. They'll keep an eye on the home-plate umpire and find out where they need to be. They have to be patient with Schilling -- he throws a lot of strikes, but if he's a little off his game, they can take him deep into the count. It might not affect him in Game 1 because he might have enough adrenaline going to throw 130 pitches, but it could have a long-range effect -- on Game 5, or especially on Game 7 if he's going on short days' rest. The Yankees always seem to turn it up a notch in postseason -- they have nothing broken that needs fixing.

From April to September, it may be a hitter’s age. But when the last week of October arrives -- particularly the last week of this October -- it’s all about arms. Live arms. Famous arms. Arms that eat hitters for brunch, with capers on top.

So it will not be coincidence that when the Yankees and the Diamondbacks tee it up Saturday, the home run champions will be watching on their $7,000 flat screens back home. That’s World Series tradition.

And those 10 guys who hit .330 or higher this year? You won’t find them around, either.

The stolen-base champs, the RBI champs, the men who led their leagues in hits, runs, walks, slugging and on-base percentage? Nope. Gone fishing.

We spend six months obsessing on all those crooked numbers. We spend six months worrying about which hitters are on a pace to break which records that have stood since the Herbert Hoover administration.

But this just in: Those six months are over now.

“This isn’t the same game we play in the regular season,” said Arizona leadoff man Tony Womack. “It’s not even the same ozone.”

Exactly. The game they play in the last week of October -- and, appearing this World Series only (let’s hope), in the first week of November -- is a game that revolves around a little dirt hill in the middle of the infield grass. And whoever does the best work on that little hill is going to be planning a parade route in about a week.

There are many reasons the Yankees have won four of the last five World Series. But if you want to read about George Steinbrenner’s money-market account, try the Wall Street Journal.

Or there’s that Yankees aura, that Yankees mystique. Those have been two popular topics lately, too. But as Curt Schilling put it Friday, “when you use those words, `mystique’ and `aura,’ those are dancers in a night club. Those are not things we concern ourselves on the ball field.”

That, however, is because mystique and aura, exotic and alluring as they may be, can’t throw a baseball 95 miles an hour. So it would make a lot more sense for the Diamondbacks to concern themselves this week with those guys who work on that little hill.

In their last six Octobers, the Yankees have won 53 baseball games. Three runs would have been enough to win 32 of them -- because the other team’s offense always seems to be having a lousy day when the Yankees are pitching against them.

Only the Yankees can afford to wait until Game 3 to start their resident five-time (soon to be six-time) Cy Young award-winner -- Mr. Roger Clemens, ladies and gentlemen.

Only the Yankees can afford to wait until Game 4 to start a pitcher whose career postseason record is a ridiculous 9-2 -- presenting Senor El Duque Hernandez.

	Only the Yankees could have a Game 4 starter whose career postseason record is 9-2 -- Orlando Hernandez.

Only the Yankees can afford to wait until Game 2 to start a pitcher who is essentially a guaranteed October “W” waiting to happen, a pitcher whose last 12 postseason starts have resulted in 11 Yankees wins -- Mr. Andy Pettitte.

And that is because the Yankees, as is their habit, happen to have an $88.5-million free-agent ace-aspiring gentleman named Mike Mussina, with his 1.38 ERA in this postseason and his 4-0, 1.29 ERA in his last two postseasons, waiting to start Game 1.

And every team that faces those pinstripers knows you’d better beat those starters, because pretty soon, the impenetrable shield, Mariano Rivera, will come marching in there to convert his 23rd postseason save in a row (although it might seem like 123). And then it’s big trouble.

Not many Diamondbacks have had the thrill of facing these men. But the ones who have seem to remember every thrilling minute of the experience.

“I faced Clemens once,” Arizona catcher Damian Miller reminisced. “Struck me out on four pitches. And my first at-bat in the big leagues was against Mariano Rivera. I flew out to Paul O’Neill in right field -- and went, `YES!’”

“Hey, I hit a home run to right field off Pettitte last year in interleague play,” said Reggie Sanders. “That one’s embedded in my memory. Believe me.”

But those experiences are few, far between and . . . we hate to break this to you . . . also just about 100 percent irrelevant when they are experiences involving any Yankee in any month other than this one.

It’s October. So it may not matter if the Diamondbacks are starting Randy Johnson or Walter Johnson. The Yankees seem to figure out some way to outpitch them.

Since 1996, they’ve won 10 World Series games started by either Cy Young trophy collectors or 20-game winners, or both. Oh, and the other six wins were started by Al Leiter (twice), Sterling Hitchock, Andy Ashby and a guy coming off a postseason one-hitter, Bobby Jones.

But it hasn’t just been the World Series where this stuff goes on. As the New York Post’s Joel Sherman observes, since 1996, the Yankees have also won every postseason game but one that was started by a pitcher who got even one Cy Young vote that season. The only loss was to Pedro Martinez. And they showed Pedro. They’ve won seven of the last eight games he has started against them, too.

So before folks start getting swept away by the thought of how dominating Schilling and Johnson can be in this Series, there’s a certain sense of déjà vu to all this -- since every World Series seems to start with talk about how sensational the other team’s pitchers are. Then the Yankees pitchers go out and find a way to beat them.

“It’s human nature,” said Yankees reliever Mike Stanton. “People want to talk about strikeouts, just like they want to talk about home runs. Even though our guys have struck out a lot of guys in their careers, too, we don’t have two guys in here who struck out 300.

“They have some guys with pure overpowering stuff. So when you talk about Schilling and Johnson, they deserve everything that’s said about them. But in the same sense, we still feel like we match up with them pretty well. We might not get to the same point in as spectacular a way. But we’ve got starters who can pitch and get us deep in games and get us to Mariano. That’s a formula that’s worked pretty well for us.”

No kidding. And 29 other teams have noticed that, one of which is Arizona. So the Diamondbacks are going to extraordinary lengths to combat that formula.

For one thing, Johnson, whose slider travels at 90 miles an hour, went looking for advice and scouting reports from the last pitcher to beat the Yankees in a postseason game. That would be Seattle’s Jamie Moyer, whose best pitch (his change-up) pokes along at about 70 miles an hour.

“And now,” the Unit announced Friday, “I’m going to be coming up with a real good changeup overnight here.”

But the Diamondbacks won’t stop there, friends. We have learned exclusively here at ESPN.com that, believe it or not, they have actual pitchers on their team who are not named Schilling or Johnson.

One of them, Brian Anderson, will even start Game 3 in Yankee Stadium against Clemens. (“Yeah,” Anderson said, “I get to be the lab rat.”) And won’t America be shocked to see him out there?

“My wife and I were laughing about this,” Anderson reported. “My aunt called last night. And she said, `Let’s think about this. It’s Mussina versus Schilling. Then it’s Johnson against Pettitte. Then it’s Clemens against Anderson. What name doesn’t belong in that group?’”

Brian Anderson correctly identified that name as his own, then announced: “Man, the bookies have got to be going mad over that game.”

Not that Anderson has any illusions that people ought to be talking about him this week. (“If you want to get as much time as they get,” he said, “go win 22 games.”) But when you’re another pitcher on a staff with those two, you know where you’re going to rate when they roll the credits on this award-winning production.

“Yeah,” he said. “With the extras. With the key grip.”

But given the Yankees’ track record, it’s tough to assume that Schilling and Johnson are going to win every game they start. So that means somebody else will have to win one. And guess what? The last team to beat the Yankees in the postseason was the ’97 Indians, a team that included this very same Brian Anderson.

The good news for Arizona is: He never gave up a hit in that series.

The bad news is: He also didn’t pitch.

“Basically,” Anderson said, “I was a great shagger in that series.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But he and his teammates know that shagging alone won’t win this World Series. They’re going to have to outpitch a bunch of pitchers who never seem to lose this time of year, in games in which the scoreboard will seem to be permanently stuck on 2-1.

At least the Diamondbacks have had plenty of practice playing in those games. They’ve already won four games in this postseason in which they’ve scored three runs or fewer.

They scored 10 runs in five games in the Division Series against the Cardinals and still won it. But the games were so intense, Womack said, “I got to the point I was taking a Tylenol every half-inning, because my head hurt so bad. I couldn’t even chew gum, because my head felt like it was on too tight.”

Those games figure to be perfect preparation for these games. And if not, well, the Diamondbacks have a secret weapon waiting out beyond the right-field fence.

“We will have a lot of bikini tops out there in the pool,” said Mark Grace. “So maybe that will be intimidating.”

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com