7 AND HELL

Big inning burns Gray as Yankees' division hopes all but extinguished

Those who think the Yankees will cruise past the Twins in the AL wild-card game Tuesday night in The Bronx should consider what happened at Yankee Stadium on Thursday evening.

With the news from Fenway Park that the AL East-leading Red Sox were getting spanked by the Astros, the Yankees grabbed a three-run lead in the fourth inning against the already checked-out Rays.

Sonny Gray wasn’t sharp, but through four frames, he had surrendered one run. Six more outs and Joe Girardi would turn it over to the bullpen that would close out a victory and pull the Yankees to within two games of the Red Sox and make for a very interesting final weekend of the regular season.

Then Gray wilted on a cool evening, Gary Sanchez experi- enced a nightmarish fifth inning behind the plate and Jonathan Holder turned to goo as the Rays scored seven runs to all but extinguish what was left of the Yankees’ slim chances to catch the Red Sox, who got thumped 12-2.

Instead of getting to two back with three games to play, the Yankees absorbed a hard-tolook-at 9-6 defeat witnessed by 32,933.

So with three games left, the Yankees trail the Red Sox by three lengths and their tragic number is one.

Trailing 1-0 thanks to Corey Dickerson’s homer off Gray, Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge greeted Rays starter Jake Faria with back-to-back homers to open the home first.

“The first two hitters of the game and we had the lead. It was just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to go back out there and shut them down,” said Gray, who gave up six runs on six hits (two homers) and walked a seasonhigh five in 4 2/3 innings and is 4-7 in 11 starts as a Yankee. “We swung the bat well, and I kept them in the game with the walks. In the fifth inning, it all kind of caught up with me.”

Now the Yankees can use the remaining three games to prepare for the Twins on Tuesday, a one-shot deal that is by no means a lock for the Yankees, who will start staff ace Luis Severino.

Should the Yankees advance to the ALDS against the Astros or Indians, Gray is the likely Game 1 starter.

The Rays scored seven runs in the fifth and Sanchez was a big reason. He failed to block a wild pitch, committed a throwing error and was charged with his

MLB-high 16th passed ball. On the physical side of things, Sanchez caught a ball under the mask in the second inning and was hit by a 95-mph pitch in the upper back by Tommy Hunter in the fifth.

On the positive side, Brett Gardner (21), Aaron Judge (51), Greg Bird (9) and Aaron Hicks (15) all homered.

Knowing the Red Sox were on the way to losing and the Yankees had a three-run lead was demoralizing to Girardi, who called for Holder to replace Gray because he didn’t have Dellin Betances or Chad Green and didn’t want to use Tommy Kahnle for multiple innings. “He did struggle with his command at times but I thought he was going to give us six innings,’’ Girardi said of Gray, who has experienced two bad outings in his past three starts. “Holder had a hard time, too. It’s frustrating because we had a chance to pick up a game. Now it’s three [out] with three to go. There are still a lot of things that can happen, but it’s frustrating.’’