A blow-out loss sends the Yankees home and barreling into the most terrifying stretch of the season

When I tuned in, the score was 10-0. Ten to nuthin. I thought, "Well, this must be a typographical error by the YES studio technicians. This will be a rib-tickling moment when they discover it." Then reality - as it sometimes is known to do - became apparent.

I said, "OK, fine. The sun is shining, there's beer in the cooler, and I do not have to watch." And then I remembered my long-unused headline, conceived two years ago: "Vidal? So soon?"

Frankly, after a 10-5 debacle, the Yankees do not deserve such a hilarious and creative headline. They deserve silence, which Yankee fans are psychologically incapable of producing. Thus, we ridicule. We love, therefore we mock. (Did Descartes say that?) The 10-0 blowout lead doesn't bother me. Nuno happens. What bothers me is that the Yankees put up 5 runs in the final innings, padding their seasonal numbers, the way A-Rod used to do. (Brett Gardner hit a two-out, two-run HR in the ninth, making the score 10-5... WTF? Et tu, Gardy?) The only honest Yankee was Carlos Beltran, who didn't even bother to stand on first base, causing a stupid double play. Good for Beltman! He didn't give a crap, and neither did anyone else in the Yankiverse. Not when we're down 10-0.

Insert sigh here.

We are halfway through June, two games over .500...

Six of the next nine are against the first place Blue Jays. If you compare their hitting numbers to ours, you'd think we were facing the 1961 Yankees. Tomorrow, Masahiro Tanaka opens the home stand, and for one game, anyway, we'll have hope. After that, any Yankee wins seem to be merely the result of pure random occurrence. This is why we practice juju.

So this is what we know: Toronto isn't that good, Baltimore is still Baltimore, and the Redsocks and Rays are penny dreadful - the phrase, not the new TV series. Tampa is so rotted that the Rays will likely start a July 1 garage sale. Thus, we are entering the phase of the season Yankee fans most dread: The league-wide dumping of high-salary bums, a few prize-winners who are likely destined for the Bronx, and which, more often than not, will lead us to nothing.

Last year, Alphonso Soriano brought two solid weeks, then slowly spiraled back into the strike-out and pop-up machine the Cubs were delighted to jettison.

In 2012, it was Ichiro, who so sparkled that we closed our eyes and re-signed him. (He's a class act, for sure. But he's just not much better than Zolio Almonte - to be honest, if at all)

In 2011, we scrap-heaped - picking up Sergio Mitre, Buddy Carlyle, Corey Wade, and a few other loose lug-nuts.

In 2010, we traded for Lance Berkman and Austin Kearns, two hitters who didn't hit.

The last truly meaningful trade acquisitions were Eric Hinsky and Jerry Hairston, in 2009. (For Hinsky, we gave up Casey Erickson and Eric Fryer; for Hairston, it was Chase Weems.) So yeah, there can be hope in the trade deadline - as long as you seek certain spare parts. I'm not sure fourth and fifth starter are considered "spare parts."

Cheer up, everybody. Nine games from now, the fate of the 2014 Yankees should be much clearer. We might be in a race. Or we might in unison say, ""The sun is shining, there's beer in the cooler, and I do not have to watch." Vidal? So Soon? Nope. He'll be gone. Think: "Yankees? So soon?