Bronx, N.Y., May 1, 2010 — A great night was anticipated Friday in the Bronx. Not only were the seemingly never home Yankees returning to start a brief homestand following a nine-game, 10-day trip, but warm and dry temps were expected as well. It was almost 70 degrees and sunny in the afternoon, so we were confident in one half of the equation.

Of course, we were confident in the other half too. Veteran southpaw Andy Pettitte was scheduled to start, and if there is a near guarantee with the 2010 Yanks beyond Robinson Cano’s defense and his offense, it’s that Pettitte is money. Pitching to an era barely over 1.00, he beat rotation stalwarts and fellow 2009 postseason starters CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to three wins this early season, and Andy really deserved to be 4-0 going in. Not only has his curve been a reliable strike out pitch lately, but his usual hit-bats game plan has seemingly found its ideal mate with the stellar defense the club has been playing behind him in 2010, perhaps the best in the league.

But weekend rules notwithstanding, Friday night was the real world too, and although Andy looked good coming out of the box, the baseball gods let him know right off that simply pitching well wouldn’t be enough. Relying on a well-spotted fastball, he was ahead of both Alexei Ramirez and Gordon Beckham to start the game by throwing seven of his first eight pitches for strikes. Still, behind in the count, both players managed to float broken-bat bloop singles the other way to short right. These dying quails were so far from where the defense was set to get them that you half expected to see a few $1,000 folding chairs with fans sitting in them where each ball landed.

Pettitte coaxed a deep fly to center (where an outfielder was to be found) from Alex Rios, but major-leagues-leading home run hitter Paul Konerko lashed a 1-2 liner to right, and when Nick Swisher flopped to the warning track without the ball, the undeniable reality was that it had cleared the wall, and the home team was down 3-0. Carlos Quentin followed with a double to left center, but Andy escaped the frame with two of the three strike outs he would garner all night.

As if to say, “You want a scoring contest, do you?” the Yankee offense jumped on veteran Freddie Garcia for three hits and two runs of their own in the bottom of the first, and only Swisher’s unfortunate one-hopper right to Konerko at first for a 3-6-3 denied the home team the tie once the Bombers had plated single tallies on an A-Rod double and all-world Cano’s rbi single. With a wily vet of our own on the mound, Yankee fans should have known better, but when Garcia’s first-pitch fastball floated over at 84 mph, the faithful in the stands had visions of a Yankee counterattack that would wear out my number two pencil long before the stretch.

Well, Freddie knew something that we all didn’t, which was that an assortment of well-placed soft stuff can put an offense to sleep, and that’s exactly what he did. It was almost refreshing when Swisher struck out swinging to close the home fourth, because it put to bed a forgettable several-inning stretch where Garcia coaxed a liner to first, a fly to right, and an infield pop along with seven of the softest-struck ground ball outs you’re likely to witness on a major league diamond. The Sox had converted baby catcher Donny Lucy’s second-inning double and a Beckham sac fly into a fourth run, and inertia set in. Pettitte retired 13 of 15 following Alex Rios’s second-inning single, thereby delivering the Sox to his pen holding at the four runs they had put up in the game’s first two frames.

Yankee inertia was on the run starting the home sixth. Curtis Granderson flied deep into the right field corner, and catcher Francisco Cervelli almost beat out a swinging bunt toward third base, but Mark Teahen barehanded the ball and pegged him out. After failing to bunt his way on against the first pitch he saw, Brett Gardner lined a two-out single just past short. He stole second as Derek Jeter took a strike, but that became a moot point when the Yankee captain homered deep to left on the next pitch for the tie.

The game went to the bullpens, and the only Yankee hurler who can rival Pettitte when it’s the “wily vet” being discussed, Alfredo Aceves pitched around a single and a walk in the seventh to earn his second “W” of the young season. (He won 10 out of the pen a year ago.) The White Sox, meanwhile, brought in hard-throwing lefty Matt Thornton to pitch their seventh and, following a steady diet of Garcia’s 65-80 mph assortment of sliders, curves, cutters, and changes, the Yanks rallied for two. Cervelli was hit by a pitch before Gardner singled yet again to set it all up, and the Captain came to the plate.

The pregame scoreboard highlights from the Wednesday/Thursday wins in Baltimore that forged a 2-1 series and a 5-4 road trip shared the fact that when Derek doubled in the Wednesday win, he stroked his 442nd two-bagger, tying him for third on the all-time Yankee list with Donnie Baseball. And with his friend and long-time teammate Pettitte down 3-0 in the first this night, he lined a 2-0 Garcia slider to left to ignite a two-run rally in the first. Four frames later, he jumped a Garcia fastball for a game-tying two-run homer, again to left, one pitch after Brett Gardner had stolen second. And now in the seventh facing the harder-throwing Thornton he made an adjustment, lining a ball the other way into the right field corner, but just foul. Bad break? Derek makes his own breaks, and he repeated the stoke for a two-run triple into the same spot.

It gave the Yanks a 6-4 lead, and that’s how it ended up. Hard-throwing Sergio Santos impressed by keeping Jeter from scoring from third, but Damaso Marte, Joba Chamberlain, and Mariano Rivera turned in some pretty fair work from the Yankee pen, and the Yanks had a series-opening win.

The Yanks have had some pretty fair days on April’s last day in the past as well. The Bombers bested the Palehose 6-4 this night, but the Highlanders were two runs better winning the first ever franchise home game 6-2 against Washington in Hilltop Park on April 30, 1903. And on this day in 1996, in a two-game series that forged a division lead they would never relinquish, the Yanks beat the Orioles 13-10 after a much younger Mr. Pettitte was driven from the mound. Veteran first baseman Tno Martinez climbed out of Don Mattingly’s shadow that day, hitting a three-run game-winner and taking over first base in the Bronx for years to come.

Let’s just say that the Yankee shortstop is delaying his next two-bagger in honor of the great hitter and Yankee he tied in that respect the other day. Sooner or later he will hit his 443rd double. That tonight wasn’t the night took what could have been a cycle, a rarity, and left it a three-hit, two-run, four-rbi tour de force.

Let’s call it a Sycle.