Yankees can’t solve Rays again even after Aaron Boone plea

The day after Aaron Boone’s stern talk with the Yankees, they came up empty once again.

The Yankees cleaned up their act defensively and even showed some late life offensively, but the end result was still the same: They lost a fourth straight game, falling 6-3 to the Rays on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

It hardly soothed the frustrations that had arisen Friday night, when the Yankees committed three errors and had another quiet game offensively in an 8-2 loss. Boone addressed his team after that game, and while his players said he got his message across, it did not lead to immediate dividends Saturday.

“I felt like we were much more in the fight today, which is at least a good thing, but we don’t want moral victories right now,” Boone said. “We want to start stringing it together. We want to start putting it together, especially offensively, to where we can start running off some wins. But we gotta start to play better, obviously. Today was at least a step in that direction, but we need to start getting some results, too.”

The Yankees fell to 5-9 on the season and own the worst record in the American League.

After striking out 13 times and batting 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, the Yankees will turn to Gerrit Cole to be their stopper on Sunday, hoping to avoid a sweep.

“Every loss is frustrating, especially with the talent we got in this room and the players we’ve acquired, the group that we have is something special,” Aaron Judge said. “We’re just not showing it right now on the field. … We saw glimpses of it today, but weren’t able to come up with the big hit.”

Rays ace Tyler Glasnow lacked command early, but the Yankees could not take advantage, managing just one run before he settled into a groove. The Yankees attempted to mount a comeback in the seventh inning, behind Rougned Odor’s solo home run and Judge’s RBI double that made it 5-3, but Aaron Hicks and Giancarlo Stanton struck out to end the threat.

Jordan Montgomery provided the Yankees a solid start, allowing just two hits over six-plus innings. But both hits he allowed were home runs and Jonathan Loaisiga allowed another, a two-run shot from Joey Wendle in the top of the seventh, that pushed the Rays’ lead to 5-1.

Glasnow was all over the place with his pitches early on, and the Yankees loaded the bases with two outs in the first inning, but Brett Gardner grounded out to end the threat.

Glasnow walked two more batters to lead off the second inning, leading to DJ LeMahieu’s RBI single that tied the game at one. But Judge struck out and Hicks lined out to strand two more runners.

After that, Glasnow settled in, retiring eight straight before LeMahieu walked to lead off the fifth. The Rays right-hander finished off his day strong, though, with strikeouts of Judge and Stanton helping him get through the inning with the two-run lead intact.

The Yankees fell to 1-4 against their AL East rival this season and are now 3-14 in their last 17 games against the Rays.

Boone said before the game that he was “more pissed off” than concerned about the Yankees’ rough start, but Judge believes the manager’s Friday night talk was “needed,” even if it didn’t immediately spark a turnaround.

“It was definitely necessary,” Judge said. “How we’ve been playing, how sloppy it’s been, just the lack of focus when we need it to be [there], you gotta have those moments sometimes where you kind of get reamed out a little bit. I think it was needed. It woke some guys up. It’s going to put us in a better position in the long haul.”