The Reds return home from yet another losing roadtrip, facing a stretch of the schedule that is some way, somehow more difficult than what they’ve played thus far. For years I have wondered how in the name of Abner Doubleday Major League Baseball drafts the schedule, and the most consistent answer has been “a computer.”

As we all know, computers aren’t stupid, it’s the people behind the keyboards, evidenced by the Reds having played 36 road games, second only to Houston’s 37. The Reds have been away for two trips of nine games, two of seven games and on two swings to the West Coast. Don’t look now but another nine-game trip is coming at the Yankees, Toronto and Cleveland.

It’s a tired, worn-down team with a pitching rotation struggling to get into the sixth inning and an offense with all the consistency of soft ice cream. The miracle is the Reds are just three games under .500; but does anyone really believe they are playing like a last-place team in the division? Doesn’t seem so, even with a pitiful road record.

Now the Reds face a growing nemesis that has ruined uh-many-ah fine summer in recent years—the June Swoon (click on the chart at right to enlarge). Since 2000, the Reds have lost a combined 27 games in the standings in June alone. Four times they have been in first or second place on June 1, but only once did they gain ground.

Now, with a 4-5 record in the month and playing the Cardinals, Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees, Blue Jays and Indians the next three weeks, the Reds could be facing a fire sale by July 1. (Hey, dope, that would require the Reds to have commodities worthy of a fire sale.)

Injuries, ineffectiveness and typical June fatigue are setting in. The warm weather has actually been brutally hot for the Reds’ month-opening trips to Philadelphia and Florida. The Reds don’t have the bench depth to compensate. The slumps are widespread, the concern for starting pitching growing, and a lot of hearts wondering if pending free agents Adam Dunn and Junior Griffey will be dealt. Now that the amateur draft is over, can we expect GM Walt Jocketty to start reshaping the 40-man roster in his own image?

One thing is for sure: June—and interleague games—has undone almost each Redlegs summer this decade. In 2000, they lost a whopping eight games in the standings to the Cardinals in great part by losing five straight to the White Sox and Indians. In 2002 and ’04 and sitting in first place on June 1, the Reds were ultimately exposed, respectively, by a five-game skid to the Mariners and Athletics and a six-game skid to the Indians and Athletics.

Of course, no one knows if the June Swoon is fact or fiction, but there seems to be a lot of teams cancelled out of the playoff races this month. The Giants made a long habit of swooning shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1958, and once the Cubs had a few swoons of their own, especially a big one in 1995, keen baseball observers have pointed an eye toward the month as one of make ‘em, break ‘em.

According to meteorologists, June is the month when weather officially breaks because the rotation and axis of earth puts most of North America more directly toward the sun. That’s why we get longer days and more heat, thus the beginning of rainstorm, tornado and hurricane seasons. The residual air mass changes cause baseballs to fly out of parks, creating the so-called “warm-weather hitters.”

Notice that home plate of most parks face southeast. That’s because you don’t want the westernly sun in the batter’s eyes for the majority of a night game. But in June, the prevailing northern jet streams shift southward out of Canada. When that stream gets caught in a fairly enclosed stadium such as Riverfront or Great American Ball Park, pitcher beware!

Over the years Midwestern teams—in the direct line of the jet stream—seem to be more affected by the June Swoon. Of course, bad luck plays a part. Lets say you are the Reds of the 2000s, Braves of 1970s and White Sox of the 1960s and your pitching staffs were not of caliber. With the onset of summer’s humid dog days and the first dead-arm period since spring training, there’s a confluence of factors (often called “hitters catching up to pitchers”) that can easily spell doom for a team in June.

For the Reds today, injuries have depleted positional players and there’s really no one else who can help from the minors. We’re also seeing manager Dusty Baker drive the starting eight pretty hard in recent weeks and there are worries young starters Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez could wear down from their early-season workload. While promising centerpieces of the near future, Cueto and Voltron are not giving the bullpen much help with their shortened high pitch-count outings.

Dare we watch? Oh, we all love a mystery. Once again it appears June will be a time that defines the Reds’ season. Recent history says so, and not very politely.