Yankees cough up late lead as spiral continues with brutal loss to Red Sox: ‘Gut-check time’

BOSTON — Aaron Judge tried to put the Yankees on his back with a 470-foot moonshot.

That only made the thud louder and more painful when they all came toppling down by the end of the night.

After Judge had given the Yankees some life with a three-run homer that, combined with Austin Wells going back-to-back, put them ahead three runs in the seventh inning, the Red Sox came all the way back to hand them a crushing 9-7 loss on Friday at Fenway Park.

Returning to the place where their current spiral began six weeks ago, the Yankees (60-45) took yet another left hook to the jaw as Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes combined to cough up the lead in their third straight loss.

“This is absolutely gut-check time in our season,” manager Aaron Boone said.

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Ceddanne Rafaela took Weaver deep for a two-run shot over the Green Monster to pull the Red Sox (55-47) within 7-6 in the seventh inning.

In the eighth, Weaver allowed a single and a 10-pitch walk before getting Rafael Devers to fly out, at which point Boone called on Holmes for the five-out save attempt.

But all it took was two batters for the Red Sox to claim the lead.

Pinch-hitter Wilyer Abreu roped a double to the gap off Holmes that tied the game before Masataka Yoshida, with the infield in, drilled a two-run single up the middle.

“It’s tough,” Holmes said. “Obviously we’re not playing our best stretch and everybody wants to be the guy to come in and we all want the ball in those situations to be the guy to pick up our teammates. I wasn’t able to get it done tonight. Some bad[ly] executed sinkers there.”

The Yankees threatened in the top of the ninth as Wells and Gleyber Torres hit back-to-back one-out singles against Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen.

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But DJ LeMahieu, in the game as a defensive replacement for Ben Rice, struck out and Anthony Volpe, who had homered earlier in the game, grounded out to end it.

Since winning the opening game of their first series here in June, the Yankees are 10-23.

Courtesy of the Orioles’ own skid, the Yankees remained just two games back of them for first place in the AL East on Friday night.

But the Red Sox have climbed back from trailing the Yankees by 14 games (on the morning of June 15) to just 3 ½ games.

“There’s definitely an end in sight,” Boone said. “We’re going to get there. It’s hard, obviously, but I’m not going to keep talking about how hard it is and tough. We got to close out innings, close out games and I’m absolutely confident we will.”

In the meantime, the hits kept coming as the Yankees lost for only the fourth time this season when leading after the seventh inning.

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They had been 55-3 in such scenarios.

“A loss is a loss,” Judge said. “Even if we lose by 15 or lose by one, lose by two like that, a loss is a loss. We just got to show up [Saturday].”

On a night when Nestor Cortes failed to make it out of the fifth inning for the third straight start, giving up four runs across 4 ²/₃ innings, it looked like Judge’s majestic blast was going to be enough to lift the Yankees.

An inning after they put runners on second and third with no outs and did not score, Judge turned a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 lead when he crushed Zack Kelly’s cutter down the middle for a 470-foot shot.

The ball flew over the camera well that sits above the seats in dead center field, just under the scoreboard, making the projected distance seem light.

It was the kind of swing the Yankees had sorely been needing, except it still was not enough.

“It feels like when we hit, we don’t pitch. And when we pitch, we don’t hit,” Cortes said. “I’m sure there’s other ways and points people could point out. If I had the answer for you, I would obviously tell the team and make it work. But tough stretch, tough month, tough two months — I don’t know what you want to call it.

“But we do need to turn it around.”

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