BOSTON -- His pitches spinning over the heart of home plate, Gerrit Cole exhaled as a loud line drive struck the top of the Green Monster, Fenway Park’s most distinctive feature transforming a sure home run into a single. The Yankees ace was saved again as the center-field triangle swallowed a ground-rule double, halting a runner at third base.

But that was where Cole’s good fifth-inning fortune expired on Friday, having been worn down by a relentless Red Sox attack. Xander Bogaerts lifted a game-tying sacrifice fly, Rafael Devers parked a two-run blast over the Monster and the Yankees were unable to respond, absorbing a 6-2 defeat -- their ninth loss in 11 tries against Boston.

• Box score

“It’s just kind of the gauntlet right now,” Cole said. “It’s the AL East. It’s a tough division; we’re playing good clubs. I felt like tonight we had really good stuff, really good location for the most part. It was a tightrope walk. A little bit of slip-up and it ended up stinging really bad.”

Devers added a three-run homer off Nestor Cortes in the seventh inning, blowing the game open while notching his fifth career game with five or more RBIs. The Yankees remain winless at Fenway Park this season and are now nine games behind the division-leading Red Sox, having opened a crucial road trip by adding two more tough losses to their season ledger.

“I’m not looking at the standings,” infielder DJ LeMahieu said. “We know where we’re at. We know what’s at stake. We just need to keep going, beginning tomorrow. I thought we had a lot of good things going on out of the [All-Star] break. We’ve had a couple of tough ones here.”

Brett Gardner hit a second-inning RBI double off Eduardo Rodriguez, then Boston’s bullpen mostly held the line after the left-hander was forced to exit due to migraine symptoms.

The Yanks had the bases loaded with one out in the second inning, but Phillips Valdez struck out Greg Allen and LeMahieu to wriggle free, remaining in the game to toss three excellent innings. They got one back in the ninth on an RBI double from Rougned Odor, but by then, the outcome appeared assured.

“It’s very frustrating,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We understand where we are in the season and the calendar, and how important it is that we play really well. I don’t think anything’s changed there.”

Cole world
Cole struck out eight over five frames, finding an extra gear in the third inning to strike out Bogaerts and Devers, touching 101.3 mph on the radar gun while stranding two men aboard.

But Cole’s 104-pitch effort didn’t touch the bar set by his previous two outings, in which he held the Astros and Red Sox to one run and eight hits over 15 innings.

“I felt I had enough to get through it,” Cole said. “I finished making all the pitches I wanted to make. … It's kind of hard for me to sit here and beat myself up about those kind of things because I just felt like we made really good pitches all night. Ultimately, those pitches need to be better.”

Cole lauded Devers’ performance in particular, offering: “Devers is a special player. Good players can make adjustments, great players put great swings on pitches in big spots. I threw a pretty good pitch. He put a perfect swing on it.”

Big knocks needed
The Yankees arrived in Boston riding a four-game winning streak, having posted series victories in consecutive sets against the Mariners, Astros, Red Sox and Phillies. They stood one out away from a fifth straight win on Thursday, dealt a devastating blow when Chad Green coughed up a 3-1 lead that eventually turned into a 5-4, 10-inning loss.

As they wait for key cogs like outfielder Aaron Judge and third baseman Gio Urshela to return from the COVID-19 injured list, the Yanks are 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position in the series thus far, having stranded 17 men on base. Help is on the way, though Urshela isn’t expected in the lineup until Sunday and Judge won’t return until Tuesday at the earliest.

“Do I miss Gio and Judge? Of course,” Boone said. “They're great players and important pieces to our lineup. But the reality is we have a lot of people filling in and playing important roles right now, who by and large have played really well. You're not going to do it every night, but they’re certainly guys that we feel are capable of helping us go out and win a ballgame.”