NEW YORK -- Add two new names to the annals of Yankees-Red Sox lore: Michael Pineda and Dean Anna.

Pineda tamed the Boston Red Sox for his first win as a New York Yankee, and Anna belted his first major league home run in the fifth inning as the Yankees drew first blood in this four-game series -- and in the 19 games the two teams will play this season -- with a 4-1 victory Thursday night at Yankee Stadium.

Unhittable: Pineda held the Red Sox hitless until Xander Bogaerts singled leading off the fifth, and the Sox were scoreless until Daniel Nava's home run leading off the seventh.

Employing a nasty slider and hitting 95 mph with his fastball, Pineda struck out seven in the first five innings. Perhaps more importantly, Pineda chewed up six-plus innings -- he left after Bogaerts singled immediately after the Nava HR -- on a night the Yankees' bullpen was short with Shawn Kelley and Adam Warren unavailable. Pineda allowed four hits and one earned run in a dominant performance.

Tarred and feathered: NESN showed a shot of Pineda's hand with what appeared to be a brown substance smeared on the palm, and the announcers reportedly said it was pine tar, a "foreign substance" prohibited in the rule book. We'll ask Pineda about it after the game.

Extended closing time: Lacking a closer on Thursday, Yankees manager Joe Girardi used David Phelps for the final 2 1/3 innings. Phelps came in with two out in the seventh and retired all seven batters he faced, striking out three of the last four hitters, including David Ortiz and Mike Napoli.

McCann can: Brian McCann picked an excellent time to bust out of his 0-for-14 slump, lining a hit down the right-field line for an RBI single in the fourth to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.

Productive outs: Alfonso Soriano, struggling at .188 through the first 10 games, got the second run of the game in with a double-play grounder right after McCann's single. No RBI, of course, but the run counted.

A little help: Both Yankees runs in the fourth were unearned, thanks to an error by Boston third baseman Jonathan Herrera on Jacoby Ellsbury leading off the inning.

It's Anna here! Anna, getting his first Yankee Stadium start, added to the Yankees' lead with a solo home run into the right-field seats in the fifth to make it 3-0. It may not have been the most important home run in Yankees-Red Sox history, but it certainly was a popular one. For a time, the name Dean Anna was trending nationwide on Twitter.

Where'd everyone go? A seat at a Yankees-Red Sox game used to be the hottest ticket in town, but the stands were less than half full when Pineda threw the first pitch of the game at 7:08 p.m., in rather pleasant 54-degree weather. The stands filled somewhat as the game moved along but still there were entire sections in the upper deck that remained uninhabited all night. The announced crowd of 42,821 seemed inflated by a couple of thousand.

Friday: CC Sabathia (1-1, 7.50) faces LHP Jon Lester (0-2, 2.51) in Game 2 of this four-game series. First pitch is at 7:05 p.m.