Yankees can't get the big hit they need in loss to Red Sox

BOSTON — Having just dispatched a bad Royals team to end a highly successful homestand, Aaron Judge didn’t equivocate on what was next: three games at Fenway Park against a Red Sox team that swept the Yankees earlier this month at the Stadium and entered Friday night with a 3 1⁄2-game lead on them.

"This is a big series for us," Judge said Thursday afternoon. "We’re ready to go. We’re swinging the bats well, the [rotation] is doing their thing, the bullpen can shut it down for us. We’ve just got to go in there and take care of our business."

Maybe on Saturday. That certainly wasn’t the case Friday.

With the exception of a three-run second, the Yankees got nothing going against the Red Sox in a 5-3 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 36,869.

"Obviously, if we’re going to be the team that we expect to be, we’ve got to play better against the top teams in the division," Aaron Boone said.

And the Yankees (40-35), winners of seven of their last nine coming in, took another blow Friday, this one in the injury department.

Zack Britton, who had been activated for the season June 13, left the game in the eighth with one out after delivering a ball to Hunter Renfroe (which made the count full). Britton quickly signaled to the dugout after throwing the pitch and soon was walking off the mound. Christian Vazquez’s RBI single off Luis Cessa then made it 5-3.

Boone said afterward that the injury appeared to be in the hamstring area and that tests will follow Saturday. "We’ll see what we have tomorrow but certainly feel for him," he said.

The Yankees actually outhit the Red Sox 9-7, but after the fourth, they didn’t put a runner in scoring position until the ninth.

Gio Urshela — back in the lineup after suffering a shin injury on Tuesday — led off the fourth with a double but promptly was thrown out at the plate for the first out of the inning after a poor decision by third base coach Phil Nevin to send him on Miguel Andujar’s ground-ball single to right. Renfroe easily threw out Urshela, giving the rightfielder his MLB-leading 11th assist.

"Probably in that spot a little bit too aggressive of a send, but there’s no one I’d want over there coaching third than Phil," Boone said.

Said Nevin: "That one’s on me. I whiffed that. No excuse . . . You have to err on the side of caution with nobody out. I’ll be thinking about this one for a little while."

The Yankees put runners on first and second in the ninth on Urshela’s infield single and Andujar’s line-drive single to left, and Clint Frazier battled Matt Barnes through an eight-pitch at-bat. But Frazier struck out on a knuckle curve that was low and outside and DJ LeMahieu rolled over a knuckle curve out of the strike zone and hit into a game-ending 6-4-3 double play.

The Yankees forced Boston starter Martin Perez from the game in the fourth, but four relievers took it from there. Adam Ottavino, traded to Boston by the Yankees in the offseason essentially as a cash-saving move, struck out two of three in a perfect eighth inning.

Domingo German, who has turned in three straight subpar starts, put the Yankees in a quick hole. Three of the first four Red Sox batters had hits, and a two-run double by Xander Bogaerts and a two-out RBI double by Renfroe made it 3-0.

The Yankees tied it with two outs in the second, getting a bases-loaded walk by Frazier and a two-run single by LeMahieu, 28-for-84 (.333) in his career with the bases loaded.

The Red Sox retook the lead in the bottom half. J.D. Martinez led off with a walk and went to second on a wild pitch. One out later, Rafael Devers hit a trickler back to German, who three times failed to pick it up for an error that put runners at the corners. Renfroe’s sacrifice fly to center gave the Red Sox a 4-3 lead.

"Very frustrating," German said. "Terrible day today."

Jonathan Loaisiga struck out four Red Sox batters in the seventh, fanning Michael Chavis (who reached base on a wild pitch), Alex Verdugo, Martinez and Bogaerts. Loaisiga, A.J. Burnett (2011) and Phil Hughes (2012) are the only three Yankees to accomplish the feat.