PHOENIX -- As he nears the end of what might be a Hall of Fame career, CC Sabathia added to his extensive Cooperstown résumé Tuesday night at Chase Field by recording his 3,000th major league strikeout. The milestone K came in the bottom of the second inning of the New York Yankees' series-opening 3-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Sabathia got catcher John Ryan Murphy swinging at a changeup as he struck out the side. Sabathia is the 17th pitcher in big league history, and the third southpaw, to reach 3,000 strikeouts. "When I actually got that last strike, I didn't want it to be Murph," Sabathia said of the former second-round Yankees draft pick. "Me and him are really close, I've been knowing him his whole career." Sabathia and Murphy played together in the Bronx from 2013 to 2015, with Murphy having caught Sabathia 15 times. Ahead of Murphy's at-bat, Sabathia picked up two quick strikeouts in the inning before Diamondbacks second baseman Wilmer Flores hit a two-out solo homer. On the two pitches before the 382-foot blast, many of the 36,352 fans present had been chanting "CC, CC, CC" and "Let's go, CC." Though the cheers didn't work on the Flores at-bat, they did when Murphy came to the plate. Ultimately handed the loss, Sabathia left the game after 5⅓ innings, having given up two earned runs, five hits and two walks, and striking out five. Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia waves to the crowd after recording his 3,000th career strikeout Tuesday night. He got the Diamondbacks' John Ryan Murphy swinging to end the bottom of the second inning for No. 3,000. Christian Petersen/Getty Images As Sabathia walked off the mound in the second inning after the momentous inning-ending strikeout, he was met near the Yankees' first-base side dugout by teammates and coaches who swarmed him with daps and hugs and handshakes. A graphic also flashed on the center-field video board congratulating Sabathia on reaching the milestone. Before the game, right fielder Aaron Judge and fellow Yankees lefty J.A. Happ asked manager Aaron Boone what course of action the team should take when the key strikeout was recorded. Boone told them not to have a plan -- just go with the flow. "I just said, 'We're going to react. We're going to let the moment tell us what to do,'" Boone said. "We're not going to take a cue from anyone. We're just going to respond to the moment in celebration of our guy." The celebration lasted a couple of minutes along the warning track by the dugout before Sabathia disappeared inside it. At some point after Sabathia came back into the dugout, Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez handed him the historic ball. Milestone Man A look at some of CC Sabathia's notable strikeouts on the way to career No. 3,000: April 8, 2001: 1st career K vs Mike Kinkade June 1, 2004: 500th K vs Gary Matthews Jr. May 21, 2007: 1,000th career K vs Ichiro Suzuki July 2, 2008: Final K with Indians vs Carlos Quentin (1,265th) Sept. 28, 2008: Final K with Brewers vs Casey McGehee (1,393rd) April 11, 2009: 1st K with Yankees vs Coco Crisp (1,394th) Sept. 10, 2011: 2,000th K vs Torii Hunter "The experience to catch his 3,000th strikeout is something that I'll never forget," Sanchez said through an interpreter. When he finally emerged from the dugout, Sabathia had a bat and helmet in his hands as he waved and acknowledged the cheering crowd. In the next instant, he looked over to a gap in the protective netting, where his children, Carsten Charles III, Carter Charles, Jaeden Arie and Cyia Cathleen -- none of whom was alive to see his first career strikeout in April 2001 -- had peered through to greet him with congratulatory hugs. Each of his children, as well as his wife, Amber, mom Margie, and other family members and friends have traveled across the country with Sabathia and the Yankees in recent weeks as he has chased 3,000. For his oldest, it has meant missed high school baseball games. "It's been fun with them, traveling around the last three starts to every city, so we've enjoyed our time together and hanging out," Sabathia said. "It's a very special time right now to have everybody in town." Nearly an hour after the game, Sabathia and his friends and family were still celebrating the moment, soaking it up on the field. Even before Tuesday's game, Sabathia's manager was soaking up the history he was about to witness. "It's one of those awesome numbers: 3,000 hits, 500 homers, 3,000 strikeouts," Boone said before the game. "That's what I grew up with in my mind, and I think I got to see Rod Carew hit 3,000, Reggie [Jackson] 500 [homers], Don Sutton 3,000 [strikeouts], 300 wins. "Those are magical numbers in our sport, and people should take notice when people come up upon them." Boone expanded on that thought after the game. "In a game that dates back to the 1800s, to be only the 17th guy to get to 3,000 is amazing," Boone said. "But it means a lot to the guys in that room, because they know who he is. "Obviously frustrated with the loss, but [Tuesday] is about us celebrating a man and what's been an amazing career." Arizona manager Torey Lovullo doesn't know Sabathia anywhere near as well as Boone, but he still believed Sabathia's feat deserved the attention it received. "If you're a baseball fan, you have to appreciate what you saw today," Lovullo said. One of Sabathia's longtime opponents, former Orioles outfielder and current Diamondbacks right fielder Adam Jones, certainly has taken notice. When speaking to ESPN about the pitcher who he said treated him "like a little brother" over the years, Jones recognized multiple parts of the historic significance of Sabathia's accomplishment. "He's one of the biggest names in the game for the last two decades, and he's the [third] African American pitcher with at least that many strikeouts," said Jones, who entered Tuesday with 105 career plate appearances against Sabathia, the most against any pitcher in his 14-year career. Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Fergie Jenkins are the only other black pitchers to have amassed 3,000 strikeouts in their careers. Like Sabathia, Gibson and Jenkins are part of the 15-man group of "Black Aces," a collection of the only black pitchers to have won 20 or more games in a season. The group's founding member, Don Newcombe, who posted the first of his three 20-win seasons in 1951, died earlier this year. "Being a 'Black Ace' is something that I take very seriously," Sabathia said. "So to be on that list as one of three guys with 3,000 strikeouts, it's hard to grasp, it's hard to think about it. But it's cool to be on that list." Added Jones: "That's pretty historic. This is just another sign that [Sabathia] is building his résumé for Cooperstown. I've played against him for 12 years, and I can say that the competition against him is always A-1. You always know when you face him that the intensity is going to be high. "He deserves everything that's coming his way." Sabathia is the first pitcher to cross the 3,000-strikeout threshold since John Smoltz did it for the Atlanta Braves on April 22, 2008. Smoltz struck out the Washington Nationals' Felipe Lopez swinging in the third inning of that game. In February, two months after an unexpected offseason angioplasty that followed an earlier offseason knee surgery, Sabathia, a former first-round draft pick, announced he would be retiring after 19 seasons. Earlier this season, Sabathia admitted he has been thinking about getting his 3,000th strikeout since spring training. Because he came into the year just 11 strikeouts shy of the milestone, he found it difficult to avoid thinking about it. "Just ready to get it over with," he said two starts ago. Of the pitchers to have previously reached 3,000 strikeouts, all but two -- Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling -- have been elected to the Hall of Fame.<doc-sep>","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"rich","width":550,"__typename":"ExternalEmbedContent"},"$ROOT_QUERY.getForgeContentBySlug({\"locale\":\"en-us\",\"slug\":\"cc-sabathia-records-3-000th-strikeout\",\"type\":\"story\"}).parts.4":{"data":{"type":"id","generated":true,"id":"$ROOT_QUERY.getForgeContentBySlug({\"locale\":\"en-us\",\"slug\":\"cc-sabathia-records-3-000th-strikeout\",\"type\":\"story\"}).parts.4.data","typename":"ExternalEmbedContent"},"type":"oembed","__typename":"ExternalEmbed"},"$ROOT_QUERY.getForgeContentBySlug({\"locale\":\"en-us\",\"slug\":\"cc-sabathia-records-3-000th-strikeout\",\"type\":\"story\"}).parts.5":{"content":"Sabathia exhaled. Then he smiled. “I didn’t want it to be Murph,” Sabathia said. “Me and him are really close. I’ve known him his whole career and he’s a great guy. I didn’t want it to be \\[D-backs starter Zack\\] Greinke and I didn’t want it to be Murph. I was just glad it was over with.” Sabathia slapped hands and hugged each of his fellow Yankees outside of the dugout. His loved ones rushed down from their seats carrying blue and white oversized cutouts of the No. 3,000 to an opening in the protective netting just outside the first-base camera well. ","type":"markdown","__typename":"Markdown"},"$ROOT_QUERY.getForgeContentBySlug({\"locale\":\"en-us\",\"slug\":\"cc-sabathia-records-3-000th-strikeout\",\"type\":\"story\"}).parts.6.data":{"html":"<doc-sep>“It was one of those things where it was kind of inevitable, but it’s not something we really talk about. It was kind of wait and see, see how it happens and it obviously happened at the end of the inning, so we were able to congratulate him coming off the field and not take too big of a break in the game,” Boone said. “It was kind of fitting that he was leading off the next inning. It’s something that we can really sit down and put things into perspective, you can look back on it as a really, really special accomplishment.”<doc-sep>
Entering Tuesday, Sabathia needed three punchouts to become the 17th pitcher — and only the third left-hander — to enter the 3,000-strikeout club. David Peralta and Christian Walker were the first two to strike out, in the second inning, before Sabathia surrendered a home run to Wilmer Flores and single to Nick Ahmed. Up came Murphy, 27, who was a Yankee from 2013 through 2015 before being traded to the Minnesota Twins. In his three years in New York, he caught 15 of Sabathia’s games, including one on April 24, 2015, in which Sabathia notched his 2,500th career strikeout. Sabathia was determined to reach 3,000 on Tuesday, attacking hitters better than he had in his previous start, in Anaheim, Calif., where he fell short of the mark. Against Murphy, he fired four cutters, the pitch that sparked his reinvention and allowed him to reach this point. Murphy fouled off three. Sabathia then unfurled a low changeup, and Murphy flailed at it. The crowd at Chase Field, filled with a healthy share of Yankees fans and aware of the moment, roared. Sabathia’s teammates and coaches met him on the field to offer hugs, one by one, a gesture he called “incredible.” “Since the end of last year, coming up short 14 strikeouts, this is the only thing I’ve been thinking about for the last six months,” he said. “To actually have it done and be over with it, I can just worry about the season. And our ultimate goal is to try to win games.”