Barely a week into spring games, we are down to four starters

Everyone knows, by now, that Chris Capuano - "Little C.C." - tweaked a gonad covering first against the Redsocks the other day.

I believe I speak for the entire Yankiverse in voicing our first essential thought:

Hey, it's just Capuano.

As Charles Koch once said, "If you aint got nuthin, phuckit, dude, cuz y'got nuthin to lose." What we lost this week is a string of five-inning starts in which 2 to 5 runs score, depending on how well our bullpen handles inherited runners. Instead of Capuano, we'll send in Adam Warren or Esmil Rogers - (the Esmil Empire, anyone?) - or as they say in poker..."the hot hand."

If anybody looks good, the spot is theirs.

Of course, other teams have suffered far more. Toronto lost Marcus Strohman, and if I were a Blue Jays fan, I would just start walking out onto Lake Ontario and figure that I'd never come back. Texas lost Yu Darvish, a reminder that the Yankees aren't the only failed former power in the AL.

But we are slicing the veal extra thin, as we await The Big Tweak: Sabathia, Pineda or Tanaka. And already, the Yankees look like a team designed by a committee. If we were a plane, we'd have six wings and one propeller.

Last March, many of us were in denial over the open wounds at 3B and 2B. Yangervis Solarte was hitting .750, and Brian Roberts hadn't yet shown us how age had affected him. We went through mid-May hoping that Solarte was a diamond found on the beach, and that Roberts would soon get hot. Around June 1, reality set in.

Today, losing Capuano is hardly a death blow. After all, it's just Capuano. But we have an open wound in the starting rotation - one we didn't expect. It could get late awfully early.