Look out, below! Yanks have lost AL home field advantage, could a first-round bye be next?

So, comrades, here we are...

This is the part of the movie where Sally hears that weird rustling sound in the basement, clicks the light switch to find it's not working, and then starts descending the creaky stairs anyway. We are Sally, and at the bottom of the stairs, in that Stygian darkness, awaits Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with a meat cleaver. 

Nine games up on Toronto in the loss column, with 47 left...

Nine straight games against the Rays, BJs and Mets... 

Gerrit Cole, our so-called ace, on the mound tonight...

A crippled lineup, sans Stanton and LeMahieu, Bader the boot and - in essence - Aaron Hicks, Josh Donaldson, Kyle Higashioka and Gleyber Torres - now 0-for-22, who has personally filled the Hopelessness Vacuum left by Joey Gallo (now 5-for-19 - .265 - with 2 HRs for the Dodgers...)  

A bombed-out, traumatized bullpen, with no certain closer or setup protocol, and a rotation of starters who almost never pitch into the seventh. No lead is safe, and a two-run deficit suddenly looks like an impossible mountain to climb.

No help on the way from Scranton, where our best young arms were recently traded, and our few position prospects have not won the confidence of the front office...

And our lone bright light, Aaron Judge, increasingly unprotected in the batting order and  facing an uncertain future in NY, as he deals with the ever-tightening, pressurized, media spotlight. Did his ragged swings last night foretell of the slump we all secretly dread? 

Well, if you're looking for answers, good luck with that. The next nine games will propel us into the dregs of August with either a foothold on the AL East or the P.T.S.D. of a freefall panic. No trades will save us, and - frankly - Brian Crashman's deals thus far have clanked. Considering the recent surges of Jordan Montgomery (two six-inning shutouts with the Cards) and Gallo, we should wonder about the negativity that various Yankees have encountered (which, in Gallo's case, was well earned.) 

Gallo now says the Dodgers coaches fixed a flaw in his swing that was undermining him with the Yankees. If so, good for him. I came to like the oafish, goony Gallo, though - like all of you - I came to cringe at the sight of him stepping up to bat. If it's true that he simply required a correction - (and we will see; he has 10 strikeouts in eight games, and at times with us, he went on minor streaks, which then petered out) - where were the Yankee coaches, which our mighty bullshit apparatus loves to tout? And what does it say about the flatlining careers of Gleyber, Hicks, Donaldson and Miguel Andujar?  

Nine games against Tampa, Toronto and the Mets... Had we simply won half our games in the recent road trip, we could coast into this homestand. But we fell apart in Seattle and haven't shown a spark since. So...

In the movies, Sally escapes. Will we? Only one way to find out. Pass the popcorn. We're going down.