Offense: Forty-nine runs in four games? I’d say that’s pretty good.

Studs:

Robinson Cano 11 for 16, 2B, HR, 6 RBI, 6 R, BB
Shelley Duncan 4 for 12, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 3 R, 2 BB, 4 K
Hideki Matsui 7 for 19, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 5 R, BB
Alex Rodriguez 5 for 11, 2 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 6 R, 4 BB
Bobby Abreu 7 for 17, 2B, HR, 6 RBI, 6 R, BB, 2 SB
Andy Phillips 7 for 18, HR, 4 RBI, 5 R, BB
Johnny Damon 4 for 11, 3 2B, 5 RBI, 4 R, 2 BB, SB
Wil Nieves 3 for 5, 3 2B, 3 RBI, 3 R

Duds:

Uh, Miguel Cairo (1 for 5, 2B, 3 R, BB, 3 K)?
Sean Henn struck out in his only at-bat after Joe Torre decided he didn’t need a DH anymore in the finale.
Really, that’s about it.

Rotation: In four games, the Yanks got one start from their fifth starter and another from a minor league spot starter, so you knew it wouldn’t be pretty going in, but no one expected that Mike Mussina would have the worst start of the weekend (4 2/3 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 5 K, 1 HR). Andy Pettitte turned in the only quality start in the finale, doing just that (6 IP, 3 R) while allowing 11 baserunners (8 H, 3 BB), but striking out eight for good measure. Not a good weekend for starting pitching.

Bullpen: The pen actually did worse than Mussina in the opener (8 R, 7 ER in 4 1/3 IP). In the remaining three games they allowed 3 runs in 11 1/3 innings while allowing 15 baserunners, which is almost exactly what they did in the Toronto series (11 2/3 IP, 2 R, 15 baserunners). Take out Friday night’s disaster and that’s a 1.96 RA (that is Run Average, with unearned runs included) over seven games and a 1.30 WHIP. That’ll work.

The Good:

Sure, Sean Henn was facing a demoralized Devil Rays squad that was already down 18-3, but he still tossed two scoreless innings in his first major league work in nearly a month and a half, striking out three. Luis Vizcaino picked up both wins in Saturday’s double header on the basis of 2 1/3 scoreless innings. Mariano Rivera tossed a scoreless inning striking out two in his only work of the weekend in Saturday’s day game. Shockingly, Kyle Farnsworth did the same.

The Bad:

After a 14-day layoff, Edwar Ramirez had a disaster outing on Friday night. He entered the game with the Yanks down 5-0, a man on second and two outs. He then walked two men on nine pitches to load the bases and gave up a grand slam to Dioner Navarro, a sub-.200 hitter who had one prior home run on the season. He then walked two more men on eight more pitches before Mike Myers was brought in to get the one out Ramirez proved incapable of recording. Brian Bruney gave up four runs on four hits and two walks while getting just three outs. Scott Proctor gave up two solo home runs in addition to two other hits in two innings, possibly scuttling the rumored Proctor-Wigginton swap in the process.

Defense: Three errors in four games (Matsui, Nieves, Cano), curiously two of them led to unearned runs charged to Mike Myers, the only runs Myers allowed on the weekend.

Conclusion: The Yanks beat the snot out of the worst team in their division, as they should have, but all that offense hid some less than encouraging pitching. Still, three series into the cupcake part of their schedule, the Yanks are 9-3. They’re now alone in third place in the Wild Card race, 6.5 games behind Cleveland, but just six back in the loss column.