Ridin' high in April, shot down in May

That's life. That's what the people say...

You can look at last week's road trip and say, "Golly, we went .500! That's pretty good!" But you can't be a Yankee fan. Nope. A Yankee fan says, "$#@%$ we went ^%$# .500; that %$#@ sucks."

We left NYC in first. We return in second. We left with a five-man rotation. Now - well - we still do, but it's like Spinal Tap's 11th decibel level. We left NYC with players emerging from slumps. Still waiting.

Yesterday, we blew four tack-on opportunities that could have demoralized Milwaukee. Suzyn Waldman lamented our lack of a killer instinct. We play with our food. She wondered why we score early and then watch movies. John blamed an overall lack of hitting. That's like blaming water for the moisture. In the ninth, you sensed hope draining from The Master's voice, then Tex's HR brought an orgasmic eruption of ecstasy - and then, three outs later, another equal bolt of pain.

That's what .500 is. For every moment of joy, an equal shot of despair.

With CC out, we have now lost 60 percent of our original starting rotation. We may never see Ivan Nova return. Nobody can say what Michael Pineda will be. Actually, we lost CC a year ago; nobody knew it. Kuroda is a State Fair roller coaster. One of these days - God help us - Masahiro Tanaka will have a bad outing. They all do.

We are now two games above .500, with four against the Mets. Last year, they swept us, and we were never the same. Today, you can feel the Yankees' diminished expectations everywhere: We just need to win two of those games - stay at .500.

Well, .500 isn't going to cut it. The Houston Astros can look to .500. We need three out of four. We need some %$#^& hope.