BOSTON — The Yankees took a 3-0 lead Thursday three batters into a four-game series at Fenway and carried a three-run lead with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of the finale. They won neither game nor the two in between.
So the days of looking up at the Red Sox are over. It is what is coming from behind in the wild-card race that should now obsess the Yankees.
The Red Sox lead the AL East by 9 ¹/u2082 games. The Yankees have not trailed by that much since Sept. 30, 2016, a year they spent almost entirely in fourth place amid a season in which they were the biggest trade-deadline sellers.