Red Sox go flat against Yankees in key series with playoff spots on the line

BOSTON — Alex Bregman sat at his locker in a quiet Red Sox clubhouse Friday night, unwilling to make too much of one loss, knowing what anxiety can do to a young club at this time of the year when every game has heightened importance.

The Red Sox entered the day a half-game behind the New York Yankees in the American League East and in the wild card. The opportunity to gain ground is here. That made a lackluster 4-1 defeat — one in which the Red Sox were no-hit through 6 2/3 innings — all the more frustrating.

“You flush tonight and you focus on the next pitch,” Bregman said. “We’ve been talking about that for the last month or so here down this playoff push … Everyone’s mentality is in a good spot.”

So he hopes.

As the player with the most postseason experience on the club, Bregman has been in this position before, jockeying for playoff positioning every year of his career while with Houston. But many of his current Red Sox teammates have never played postseason ball. That’s what gives the next two weeks added uncertainty.

The Red Sox have shown as much fight and resilience throughout the season as they have vacant nights at the plate like Friday.

They are still in a stable position for now, 1 1/2 games back for the second wild-card spot. But coming off a 3-3 road against two sub .500 teams and losing the first game to New York has made things more uncomfortable than necessary.

“We were flat today, but that doesn’t mean that’s going to continue to be tomorrow,” starter Lucas Giolito said. “I think, after today, kind of regroup and go and play the baseball that we know how to play tomorrow.”

Before the game, the Red Sox did their best to channel the excitement in the city for a team that hasn’t made the postseason each of the last three years. With clips from the 2004 Red Sox-Yankees rivalry showing on the jumbotron at Fenway Park, Pedro Martinez walked onto the field to throw out the first pitch to Jason Varitek, as a hearty, pre-first pitch crowd roared in appreciation.

A buzzing energy in the park was high — something the team has said all season its thrives off — until two batters into the game when Aaron Judge crushed a middle-middle fastball from Giolito 468 feet for a solo homer. It moved him into fourth all-time in homers in Yankees history behind Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gherig.

Despite allowing just two runs, one earned, over 5 2/3 innings, Giolito didn’t sugarcoat his outing.

“It wasn’t good enough,” he said. “The other guy is throwing zero after zero, I’ve got to match that for us to have a chance to win. The homer to Judge in the first was very avoidable. I yanked a heater all the way across the plate. I feel like that was a big momentum shift. I’ve got to be better than that in a game like this.”

Giolito’s phrasing, “a game like this” says everything that needs to be said about where the Red Sox stand. Though they’ve already clinched the season series if the two teams finish with the same record, the Yankees are still ahead of them in the standings.

More frustration presented itself in the third. With two outs, Giolito got a fly ball to left that appeared to end the inning. Instead, the batter Ben Rice reached on catcher’s interference as his bat clipped Carlos Narvaez’s glove. Cody Bellinger hit an RBI single in the next at-bat to make it a 2-0 game.

On a night where the Red Sox were without Rob Refsnyder and Romy Gonzalez and with Wilyer Abreu working his way back from a calf strain but likely not returning until next week, the offense sputtered. Yankees starter Luis Gil issued four walks over six no-hit innings, effectively wild in a sense, but the Red Sox had nothing to show. It wasn’t until two outs in the seventh when Nate Eaton’s solo homer broke up the no-hit bid and saved the Red Sox from being no-hit at Fenway for the first time since 1958.

“A few guys are banged up and all that, but we have to go out there and execute,” manager Alex Cora said.”There’s a few signs out there that tell me that some guys are gonna get hot, but as a unit, we have to be better.”

On a night when Toronto won yet again, but Detroit watched its ace Tarik Skubal exit with injury, it’s a reminder the American League is wide open. The Red Sox have a prime chance, but are making it hard on themselves.

Just three of nine players in Friday’s lineup had played in the postseason. Their young players may be pressing at an important time, but they have to buckle down over the next 14 games as they start a stretch that will determine whether or not they make the postseason — or where they’ll play if they do make it. Friday was the best tone-setter.

(Photo: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)