The Yankees wrap up their season series with the Rangers this afternoon on another gorgeous day in the Bronx. The Yanks have taken the first five games and Chien-Ming Wang will be on the mound in his first start since his near-perfect game looking to give the Yankees a six-game sweep. The Rangers, meanwhile, send out Brandon McCarthy, who’s been a disaster in three of his last five starts, allowing at least five runs while getting knocked out before the fourth inning.

Things have turned around dramatically for the Yanks in the past week. Wil Nieves finally got his first Yankee hit last night after three years of trying (bringing his career OPS+ up to -6). Andy Pettitte got his second win of the season on Tuesday after seeing the bullpen blow three others in his previous four starts. Doug Mientkiewicz has raised his batting average 94 points over the last ten games, batting .407/.433/.741 over that span.

Of course the big news is the performance of the starting rotation, which finally has its intended Big Three of Wang, Pettitte, and Mussina active at the same time. Removing only the stink bomb laid last Friday by the since-demoted Kei Igawa, here’s how that Big Three plus rookies Phil Hughes, Darrell Rasner, and Matt DeSalvo have performed over their past eight games:

51 IP, 27 H, 8 R, 2 HR, 14 BB, 28 K, 1.41 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 6-0

The only games over that stretch in which the starter did not earn the win (again excepting Igawa’s stinker) were the win Luis Vizcaino vultured from Pettitte in Texas and that ugly 3-2 loss to the Mariners on Monday night after DeSalvo’s gem. The best stat of all from this run: 6 1/3 innings pitched per start.

Incidentally, here’s the bullpen over those eight games:

21 IP, 18 H, 6 R, 3 HR, 6 BB, 13 K, 2.57 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 1-1

Of course, they’ve blown as many saves as they’ve converted (including one of each type in that Pettitte/Vizcaino game in Texas), but then one of those blown saves came on that blown stolen base call on Monday. If Bloomquist is called out, there’s a good chance that Rivera records the save with Beltre standing in the on-deck circle. More encouraging than that, however, is the fact that, with the Yankees on an 8-3 run with the returns of Clemens and Hughes on the horizon, one needn’t cling to those kind of what-ifs.