Yankees manage only three hits, fall to 0-7 against Red Sox

Aaron Boone sees the days ticking away and the chasm in the standings getting larger and larger. He’s not under any delusions that the Yankees can eke out relevancy if they keep going as they’re going, especially not with what they have stacked up against them.

And on Friday, even before their 4-0 loss to Boston dropped them nine games behind the AL East leaders, the difficulties and indignities had piled up to a nearly untenable degree.

Not only are they down an All-Star starter in Aaron Judge, a key cog in Gio Urshela, Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher in Kyle Higashioka and three pitchers, all of whom are on the COVID-19 injured list, but they’ve also lost Luke Voit to a knee injury.

Aroldis Chapman hasn’t looked himself in weeks, and it’s entirely possible they had to rent a bus to transport all the Triple-A players they needed to fill out their roster Friday from the deep reaches of Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre. They likely won’t get back any of their injured or ill players for another 10 days.

But wait, as we can say in this particularly bleak infomercial, there’s more: They’re in fourth place. And they’re 0-7 against Boston.

And by the sixth inning of their toothless loss to the Red Sox, the 40,130 fans present were restless and booing, and very likely wondering how a team that was so promising at the beginning of the season had fallen so far by the All-Star break.

(At least Chapman threw a scoreless ninth after entering in a relatively low-leverage role.)

"Every day is really important right now," Boone said. "Today it was important we come out and play well and try to get a W, and it didn’t happen . . . What are we, 90ish games in? They’re critical. We’re in a hole."

And frankly, not one this Yankees offense seems equipped to deal with. They managed only three hits against Eduardo Rodriguez, Hirokazu Sawamura and Tanner Houck, and only one through the first 5 2⁄3 innings.

Jordan Montgomery, who was announced as the starter only hours before first pitch, acquitted himself well but fell victim to one bad inning. He allowed three runs and three hits — all of which came in the second inning — in six innings, walking two and striking out four.

The Yankees haven’t scored a run while Montgomery has been on the mound in his last five starts, tying the longest such streak in Yankees history, according to Stats Perform.

"I’m just doing my job going out there focusing on hitters trying to get outs and keep us in it," Montgomery said of the lack of support. "I’m going to keep being a good teammate and support the hitters [whether] they’re not scoring runs or if they’re scoring a ton of runs. They’re trying their hardest and I’ve always got their backs."

The Red Sox did most of their damage in the second. Montgomery walked Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers shot a drive to deep centerfield that Brett Gardner couldn’t quite track down for a double. With the infield back, Hunter Renfroe grounded out to short to make it 1-0. Christian Arroyo added a two-out, two-run homer into the Yankees’ bullpen.

The Yankees did put runners at the corners with two outs in the seventh, but pinch hitter Hoy Park, one of the reinforcements from Scranton, grounded out to first. J.D. Martinez’s homer off Justin Wilson’s 0-and-2 fastball made it 4-0 in the eighth.

Boone said he is worried about the hole the Yankees are digging "every time we lose."

"This is one of those teams that we’re looking up at and yeah, we’ve got to find a way,’’ he said. "Obviously, we’ve got to mount a little bit more on offense to give ourselves a chance."

Somehow, some way.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.