BOSTON — Aaron Judge tried to put the Yankees on his back with a 470-foot moonshot.
That only made the thud louder and more painful when they all came toppling down by the end of the night.
After Judge had given the Yankees some life with a three-run homer that, combined with Austin Wells going back-to-back, put them ahead three runs in the seventh inning, the Red Sox came all the way back to hand them a crushing 9-7 loss on Friday at Fenway Park.
Returning to the place where their current spiral began six weeks ago, the Yankees (60-45) took yet another left hook to the jaw as Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes combined to cough up the lead in a third straight loss.
Ceddanne Rafaela took Weaver deep for a two-run shot over the Green Monster to pull the Red Sox (55-47) within 7-6 in the seventh inning. In the eighth, Weaver allowed a single and a 10-pitch walk before getting Rafael Devers to fly out, at which point Aaron Boone called on Holmes for the five-out save.
But all it took was two batters for the Red Sox to claim the lead.
Pinch-hitter Wilyer Abreu roped a double to the gap off Holmes that tied the game before Masataka Yoshida, with the infield in, drilled a two-run single up the middle.
The Yankees threatened in the top of the ninth as Wells and Gleyber Torres hit back-to-back one-out singles against Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen.
But DJ LeMahieu, in the game as a defensive replacement for Ben Rice, struck out and Anthony Volpe grounded out to end it.
Since winning the opening game of their first series here in June, the Yankees are 10-23.
Courtesy of the Orioles’ own skid, the Yankees remained just two games back of them for first place in the AL East on Friday night.
But the Red Sox have climbed back from trailing the Yankees by 14 games (on the morning of June 15) to just 3 ½ games.
At least for a few minutes Friday, it looked like Judge’s majestic blast was going to be enough to lift the Yankees.
An inning after they put runners on second and third with no outs and did not score, Judge turned a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 lead.
Red Sox reliever Zack Kelly entered the game with runners on first and second to face Judge, who wasted no time doing damage.
Kelly threw him a cutter down the middle and Judge mashed it over the camera well that sits above the seats in dead center field, just under the scoreboard, making the projected distance of 470 feet seem light.
It was somehow only Judge’s second-longest home run of the season, a 473-foot shot at Yankee Stadium in May taking top honors.
Before Judge’s blast, the bottom of the Yankees’ lineup carried its weight.
Volpe tied the game in the second inning with a solo home run, Trent Grisham added an RBI double in the fifth inning and the scuffling Alex Verdugo, bumped up to batting leadoff for the night, hit a sacrifice fly that tied the game at 3-3 in the fifth.
But Nestor Cortes promptly gave the Red Sox the lead back in the bottom of the inning.
For the third straight start, Cortes failed to make it out of the fifth inning.
He lasted just 4 ²/₃ innings, getting tagged for four runs on nine hits and two walks and appeared irked when Boone came to take the ball from him.