BOSTON — The Yankees came out flatter than Lance Dobbins’ professional baseball portfolio.
And then, once they finally got a rally going, they killed it quicker than it started because of a boneheaded play.
The result was a second straight loss to the Red Sox, this one 4-3 on a chilly Saturday night when Hunter Dobbins shut them down across six shutout innings in front of a sold-out Fenway Park.
Dobbins, who made headlines over the past week by talking about his hatred for the Yankees and sharing details of his father Lance’s professional baseball career that turned out to be falsehoods, silenced the Yankee bats.
They mustered just two hits and one walk against the Red Sox rookie right-hander, who struck out five and only allowed one runner to reach scoring position all night.
Once Dobbins left the game, the Yankees (42-27) finally showed signs of life.
Their first two batters of the seventh inning reached on walks and came around to score on RBI singles from Jasson Domínguez and Austin Wells that cut the Red Sox’ 4-0 lead in half.
But there were two outs when Domínguez was on second and Wells on first as Trent Grisham swung through a 2-1 pitch.
Domínguez, perhaps thinking it was strike three, was caught standing flat-footed in no-man’s-land between second and third base.
Red Sox catcher Carlos Narváez threw down to second as Domínguez took off for third, but he did not get there in time to avoid making the final out and ending the rally in brutal fashion.
The Yankees got within a run in the ninth as Paul Goldschmidt led off with a double and came around to score on a pair of groundouts.
Domínguez then tried to redeem himself with a two-out double, but Wells flied out to the warning track in center to end it as the Red Sox (36-36) clinched their second series win of the rivalry in as many weekends.
It marked the third straight game that the Yankees lineup was held in check, as they have now scored five runs in that span.
Carlos Rodón was far from his sharpest, either, as the left-hander was outdueled by Dobbins for the second straight start.
The Red Sox tagged Rodón for four runs (three earned) on seven hits and two walks across five-plus innings.
Anthony Volpe came into Saturday having a Jeter play in the hole at shortstop in back-to-back games, but an attempt to make it three straight went awry in the first inning.
Rob Refsnyder led off with a double into the left field corner.
Two outs later, Narváez hit a ground ball to the hole. Volpe made a nice play to barehand it, but his leap throw bounced past Goldschmidt for an error that allowed Refsnyder to score from second for the 1-0 lead.
Narváez, the ex-Yankee who delivered the walk-off winner on Friday night, led off the fourth inning with a double to left field.
Two batters later, Trevor Story lined a single up the middle to make it 2-0 and turned it into a hustle double that appeared to catch Grisham sleeping as he collected the ball in center field and Volpe by surprise as he caught Grisham’s throw without much effort to make a tag on Story.
Story was eventually stranded at second, but the play typified how the Yankees played on Saturday, a step behind for most of the night.
Rodón hit No. 9 hitter Kristian Campbell on a back-foot slider to lead off the fifth inning.
Two outs later, the rookie raced around from first base on Romy Gonzalez’s double to make it 3-0.
Story led off the sixth with a double to knock Rodón out of the game.
Yerry De los Santos entered and the Red Sox played small ball against him, as Ceddanne Rafaela laid down a sacrifice bunt before Marcelo Mayer hit a sacrifice fly to push the lead to 4-0.
