Blue Jays 5

Yankees 2

By now, that 20-4 start seems like a lifetime ago, far removed from the opening act of an inevitable dream season.

Reality is hitting the Yankees hard right now, and reality is this: They are in a very real funk and there doesn’t appear to be a remedy in sight.

“If there was an answer, I’d try to provide it to the players,” Joe Torre said after his team’s 5-2 loss to Toronto at the Stadium. “There’s not a whole lot to do, other than work hard to be positive for them.”

Right now, looking at the glass half-full is no easy task. The Yankees have lost three straight and a stunning 10 of their last 13. Incredibly, they’ve been even worse at home, where they’ve lost six straight for the first time since 1989 and have lost 10 of 11 for only the second time ever.

How bad is it? Put it this way: The Yankees are not only 1½ games out of first place, but they’re just 3½ games out of third.

All of a sudden, the team that couldn’t lose can’t get a win.

“It’s not offense, it’s not defense, it’s everybody,” starter and loser David Wells said. “There’s nobody to blame. It’s the team.”

Added backup catcher John Flaherty: “We’re going to find out what we’re made of now.”

Yesterday there were problems on both sides as Wells was hammered and the Yankee bats were stymied by Cory Lidle.

Wells cruised through the first three innings, allowing only one hit. In the fourth, Carlos Delgado and Tom Wilson hit back-to-back RBI doubles, giving the Jays a 2-0 lead.

In the sixth, Wells fell apart, surrendering three runs on four straight doubles. The only mulligan was that on the third two-bagger, to Carlos Delgado, left fielder Juan Rivera broke the wrong way and then tripped, allowing the hit to fall in. A frustrated Wells threw up his hands in disgust as a run scored.

“That’s when you know everything’s not working for you,” Wells said. “[Rivera] just got turned around. We all get frustrated.”

More disturbing was Wells’ admission that “every pitch I threw, they got on top of it, like they knew they were coming.” Wells, however, said he didn’t think he was tipping his pitches.

He also didn’t get much help from his offense. Alfonso Soriano homered and tripled (he also singled), but only one other Yankee reached third – Jeter with a ninth-inning triple – and he was stranded. For that matter, only one other Yankee reached second – Jason Giambi in the fourth – and he didn’t score either.

The Yankees have scored just seven runs in the last three games. Early in the season, that used to be their total by the fifth inning.

“The first two weeks, we didn’t care who was pitching. We were scoring runs,” Soriano said. “The problem is not the pitching. The problem is the offense.”

To be fair, the offense is devoid of Nick Johnson and Bernie Williams. Then again . . .

“There’s no reason to use that as an excuse,” Robin Ventura said. “They’re not coming back anytime soon.”

“The first month, everybody was hot,” Jeter said. “Now everyone’s gotten cold. Everything is contagious.”