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The Yankees' deficit was 5-1 when starter Ivan Nova handed the ball to Manager Joe Girardi in the fifth. Nova threw 88 pitches.
BOSTON — There was a time in August when the Yankees felt fortunate to have 10 games remaining against the Boston Red Sox. At the time they were only five games behind Boston in the standings and still had designs on winning the American League East.
The schedule, with all those games against the Red Sox, was thought to be their ally.
But as the Yankees' focus gradually shifted from the division to the wild card, all those games against the streaking Red Sox became a liability. The Yankees are not even chasing the Red Sox any longer, but Boston has done as much as any other team to scuttle their playoff hopes.
By beating the Yankees, 9-2, on Sunday to complete a three-game sweep, Boston earned its seventh win in those 10 games. The Red Sox won 13 of the 19 games between the teams over all.
"We stunk here," Manager Joe Girardi said. "We didn't play well here. We have options: continue to stink or play better."
And in the event the Yankees get all the help they need from other teams and make it to the playoffs, and win the wild-card game, they would probably have to come back to Boston to face the Red Sox in an A.L. division series, a rather unsettling proposition.
The Yankees went into Sunday's game hoping to gain ground on the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers, who both lost Sunday and remain tied for the league's wild-card spots. But the Yankees squandered the opportunity with an inopportune sloppy performance. Not only did they fail to narrow the gap between them and the wild-card leaders, but they lost ground to the Baltimore Orioles and the Cleveland Indians, who each won.
That leaves the Yankees three games out of a wild-card spot — four in the loss column — with two teams between the Yankees and the leaders with 12 games remaining.
Worse, the injury epidemic that has characterized their season has not subsided. On the same day that Alfonso Soriano returned from a sprained thumb, Alex Rodriguez was removed from the game with a sore right calf. Rodriguez had already been nursing a sore left hamstring that had forced him to be the designated hitter, rather than third baseman, for the previous four games.
Rodriguez had a run batted in and a single Sunday before being removed for pinch-hitter Vernon Wells in the top of the fifth. The Yankees have the day off on Monday, but it was unclear whether Rodriguez would be available on Tuesday, when the Yankees open a three-game series in Toronto.
Coming into the game Sunday, the Yankees were hoping that Ivan Nova, their starting pitcher, would do what few Yankee pitchers have been able to do this season: shut down the Red Sox potent offensive attack. He did not come close.
Nova, who has complained of a sore elbow in recent starts, gave up five runs, four of them earned, in four innings. He pitched into the fifth, but he was removed after he hit Mike Carp with the bases loaded and no outs, extending Boston's lead to 5-1.
The Yankees scored in the first. Curtis Granderson walked and went to third when Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz made an errant pickoff attempt. Rodriguez grounded out to short, and Granderson trotted home.
But Boston wiped out the deficit within minutes. With one out in the bottom of the inning, Daniel Nava doubled to right and scored when David Ortiz, the next batter, singled through the hole on the left side of the infield. One out later, Mike Napoli hit his seventh home run against the Yankees this season and knocked in his 19th and 20th runs against them as Boston took a 3-1 lead.
That would expand to 4-1 in the fourth when Boston had Jarrod Saltalamacchia on third and Xander Bogaerts on first with one out. Bogaerts broke for second, and as soon as catcher Chris Stewart made the throw, Saltalamacchia broke for home. Shortstop Brendan Ryan could not gather Stewart's throw, and both runners were safe.
The game got out of hand as Girardi emptied his bench with J. R. Murphy and Zoilo Almonte, and turned to some of his more obscure relief pitchers, like Cesar Cabral and the left-hander Mike Zagurski, who made his Yankees debut.
And because of the lopsided score of the game and the two that preceded it, Mariano Rivera did not get a chance to pitch in his final regular-season series here. The Red Sox honored Rivera before the game because of his retirement plans, then did their best to help make that retirement begin as soon as possible.
INSIDE PITCH
Phil Hughes will start Wednesday against the Blue Jays in Toronto, Joe Girardi said. Hughes has made three starts against the Blue Jays this year and is 0-1 with a 3.78 earned run average. But over his career he is 2-4 with a 5.72 E.R.A. at Rogers Centre. ... Red Sox first baseman Mike Napoli was ejected from the game for arguing with the home-plate umpire, Ron Kulpa. It was his first career ejection. ... Boone Logan will meet Monday with Dr. James Andrews about the soreness in his left elbow.
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