Bronx, N.Y., August 6, 2010 — “Kiss of Death,” I guess you could call it. But it was so hard to resist, just such a cool stat. The Yankee Stadium Scoreboard has been coming out with them repeatedly, like when they informed us in the bottom of the first when Derek Jeter singled past short that he had tied Babe Ruth for career base hits. No possible harm in that, I guess, unless he happens to never get a hit again (perish the thought — literally not possible). But even given that improbable scenario, how could we not celebrate yet another Captain milestone?

But this was different; it was pregame, and you had to do a double take. I mean, it’s August, and barring a week to think it over a couple of months ago, Javy Vazquez has been starting every fifth game, a long list of starts. “No errors have been made by the Yankees while Javier Vazquez has been pitching in 2010.” Are you kidding me? That is so cool!

Roughly 40 minutes later that stat had evaporated, and in six or seven minutes more so had an early Yankee lead. A few minutes later, as it turned out, so had the game.

The Yanks went ahead 2-1 on Mark Teixeira’s two-run shot in the first, one better than David Ortiz’s singleton home run in the top half. Sure, Adrian Beltre doubled to start the second inning, but Javy, who was searching for the right mix, found it, coaxing back to back popups. J.D. Drew’s attempt reached the outfield grass at least, where Robbie Cano gloved it; the 1-2 dying quail off Mike Lowell’s bat would become a problem, in fact, because of how weakly it was struck. The old saw that has it that pitchers shouldn’t catch popups bit the home team big time. Javy stood halfway to home literally waiting for Lowell’s flick to fall into his glove when Francisco Cervelli called him off, then rushed in, unable to establish good position, only to have the descending ball bounce off his glove and roll into foul territory.

Instead of man on second with two outs, it was first and third and one, and Javy got the team one of two steps out of the mess with a swinging strike out of rookie left fielder Ryan Kalish. Vazquez started Jed Lowrie with a ball, but he got ahead, with the Sox second sacker fouling off four straight pitches before finally working a walk to load them up. Javy was wavering now, and the score became tied when he walked Jacoby Ellsbury on five pitches. He got ahead of Marco Scutaro 1-2, but the Boston shortstop ripped a two-run double to left and the Red Sox had a 4-2 lead.

The Yanks immediately began an uphill climb, one made precipitous by Clay Buchholz’s economy of pitches. Fronted by a 95-mph fastball and a cutter just a bit slower, he had the Yankees swinging early, and rueing the at bats when they didn’t, as home plate ump Bruce Dreckman called 11 first pitch strikes against idle Yankee batters. The Boston righty was back on the bench after throwing a single-digit number of pitches three times from the third through the sixth innings, none of them sadder than the bottom of the fourth, when a genuine “threat” evaporated in a shocking instant. Cano led off with the second of his three hits, a single to right, and Scutaro made an error tossing Lance Berkman’s bouncer to second for an attempted force. Curtis Granderson had another bad night at the plate, but he had made a bid for an infield single in the second, and later would work five- and four-pitch at bats into a flailing strike out and a popup, respectively. But now when Buchholz needed it, Curtis delivered the correct bouncer on the very next pitch: a room-service two-hopper to first that gave Mike Lowell plenty of time to step on the base and throw to second so Berkman could tag himself out simply by arriving at the base. Buchholz struck out Cervelli and escaped what had seemed a huge threat just moments earlier on a mere nine throws.

The Yanks did creep closer in the fifth. Following a strike out, Jeter was hit by a pitch, and Nick Swisher singled to right. Teixeira fouled out, but Alex Rodriguez singled for a run. But the snakebit Yanks struck again, as Cano with his three hits picked this at bat to bounce to second. The failure to tie was huge, because following two strike outs, young Kalish reached Vazquez for a two-run home run in the sixth, and the lead was three runs, 6-3.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the grandstand, at least, to believe it, but until that point Javy had really turned in a decent start. A guy who usually establishes his fastball and then introduces new looks as he goes along, Vazquez was mixing it up from the start. He showed two kinds of fastballs, a slider, a few curves and a change of pace in the very first inning, and he responded to Beltre’s lead-off second inning double by coaxing two popups and a swinging K. But the error stressed him and before he could escape the three-run (but just two-hit) inning he would issue three of the four walks he was reached for on the night.

He allowed just six hits, four through five innings, and three of the six runs were unearned. Vazquez threw 19 of 27 first-pitch strikes, and used 11 swings and misses to accumulate five strike outs. He managed to establish all his pitches, but could never escape the mess that befell him in the second.

The Yanks made a few more tries. Cano doubled off the wall in right with one down in the eighth to drive Buchholz from the game, but Berkman’s ensuing line drive to center off Daniel Bard, one of few hard-hit balls Lance has had in about 20 at bats, was snagged by Ellsbury in center. And a game Friday night crowd stuck around to root through the ninth, cheering Jeter through a 12-pitch walk off Jonathan Papelbon with two down, but Swisher flied out to left to end it.

It could not have been a more pleasant evening in the Bronx and, despite the usual healthy Red Sox fan representation, the 3:17 game time passed with a lot of shouting, but little of the fisticuffs and thrown debris we usually see at these contests. One certainly strange phenomenon was seeing the fans of both teams, if not share a lusty cheer when the Tampa 2-1 loss to Toronto was posted on the out-of-town scoreboard, at least enjoy their separate celebrations concurrently.

So this oddest of four-game wraparound series moves onto game two Saturday, a 4 pm start preceding the 8 pm ESPN Sunday night game time and the unprecedented 2 pm start in what will surely be a steamier Yankee Stadium Monday afternoon. We’ll be there for every inning, even if AJ Burnett and Josh Beckett strain the resources of Metro North transit by initiating a 15-inning love fest like the one they held in the Bronx last year on Sunday night that could keep much of the Eastern seaboard up way past their bed times.

But the Saturday tilt pitting John Lackey and CC Sabathia comes first, and I can guarantee you one thing. If the stadium scoreboard posts anything amazing that has not yet befallen Sabathia in this 2010 season …

I won’t be watching.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!

Bronx, N.Y., August 4, 2010 —