BOSTON — Cam Schlittler played with fire for four innings and got away with it.
But then in the fifth, his defense added some lighter fluid, and his start went up in flames.
After Amed Rosario let a smoked ground ball go through his legs instead of turning a potential inning-ending double play, the first of four unearned runs came in on Schlittler to sink the Yankees in a sloppy 6-3 loss to the Red Sox on Thursday night at a sold-out Fenway Park.
Former Yankees prospect Caleb Durbin delivered the deciding blow before the fifth inning was over, taking Schlittler deep for a two-run shot just over the Green Monster to break a 2-2 tie.
The Yankees tried to mount a comeback in the ninth against their former closer, Aroldis Chapman, who loaded the bases with two outs before finally shutting the door.
It was a messy loss for the Yankees (48-32), who committed a season-high four errors — making all six of the runs their pitchers allowed the unearned variety — and wasted some chances to cash in offensively before the scuffling Red Sox (33-46) came alive.
“At the end of the day, I was giving them opportunities,” said Schlittler, who struck out nine across five innings. “Feel like I battled those first four [innings], getting myself out of those jams. Then I made a mistake there in the fifth.”
The offense, meanwhile, could not pick up the defense, going 3-for-11 with runners in scoring position — including Ben Rice, the Yankees’ best hitter, going 0-for-4 in those situations and leaving seven men on base.
Schlittler stranded a pair of runners in each of the first, second and fourth innings. He might have been able to do it again in the fifth, until Rosario’s fielding error opened the floodgates.
“We just didn’t do a good job of taking care of the ball tonight,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Just not up to the way we’ve been playing or are capable of playing. Ultimately, it was too much to overcome.”
The Yankees led 2-0 entering the inning before Schlittler issued a leadoff walk to Masataka Yoshida and then gave up a single to Ceddanne Rafaela. He followed that up by striking out Wilyer Abreu on a 100 mph sinker for the second time of the night.
But Willson Contreras came up next and drilled a 112.8 mph ground ball to third base, where Rosario got his glove down but not far enough as the ball zoomed right underneath it, scoring Yoshida to make it 2-1.
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“That’s definitely a play I got to make,” Rosario said through an interpreter. “You at least got to find a way to knock it down and at least get one out.”
Jarren Duran then lifted a sacrifice fly to medium-depth left field, as José Caballero — whose solo homer in the fourth made it a 2-0 game — got off a throw home that was up the first base line, allowing the Red Sox to tie it.
The hot-hitting Durbin, whom the Yankees sent to the Brewers in the Devin Williams trade (before the Red Sox acquired him this February), capped off the rally by crushing Schlittler’s cutter into the Monster seats for the 4-2 lead.
“Not [trying to go] down and in where he likes it,” said Schlittler, who lowered his ERA to 1.62 because all four runs were unearned. “He’s seen a lot of cutters today and makes a good enough swing to get it out there.”
The Yankees later made it a one-run game in the seventh when Paul Goldschmidt, on the 12th pitch of a battle with former Yankees reliever Greg Weissert, hit a chopper to third that allowed Jazz Chisholm Jr. to score from third.
But the Red Sox brought in lefty Danny Coulombe to face Ben Rice, who could not deliver the big swing in his hometown, instead grounding out to end the rally.
The Red Sox then added a pair of insurance runs in the eighth after Yerry De los Santos bobbled a sacrifice bunt and Anthony Volpe threw wide on the second half of a potential inning-ending double play.
“It happens sometimes, and it’s not fun going through that or fun when you make mistakes in a game, especially one that you have a lead and it’s a close game for most of that game,” Boone said. “But we didn’t play well enough.”
