NO CONTEST By GEORGE A. KING III

Night after brawl, Ynaks show little fight

BOSTON — Aaron Boone sighed lightly before answering each of the first two postgame questions following a disheartening loss to the Red Sox on Thursday night.

Perhaps the manager was stalling to gather his thoughts. Or the reality of watching his club stumble through the first eight innings before showing late life in the ninth had Boone searching for answers.

Either way it was difficult for Boone, or anybody else connected to the Yankees from the Steinbrenner family on down, to watch this 6-3 loss at a soggy Fenway Park in front of 36,341.

“We didn’t play good behind him,’’ Boone said of starter Sonny Gray, who got hammered for six runs and seven hits in three-plus innings.

Boone wasn’t fibbing, but it was more than who was behind Gray, because the Yankees made fielding miscues and were no-hit by Rick Porcello for seven innings.

Second baseman Tyler Wade’s throwing error to the plate fueled a four-run second inning. Left fielder Giancarlo Stanton botched Jackie Bradley, Jr.’s fly ball near the leftfield foul line and seats by overrunning it and having it land in fair territory behind him for an RBI ground-rule double in the third, when the Red Sox stretched the lead to 6-0.

“I had it as three or four rows in the seats. I was about ready to jump over the fence. Just kicked back on me. Wind, rain whatever. It doesn’t matter if it’s a factor. What matters is it gave them more runs and it docked Sonny’s ERA, also,’’ said Stanton, who is getting used to the move from right to left field. “It doesn’t help the squad either way, no matter what happened.’’

When the tarp was put on the field before the top of the sixth the Yankees had zero hits and one base runner — Stanton was hit with two outs in the fourth. Porcello retired the Yankees in order in the sixth but lost the no-hit bid in the seventh when Aaron Judge doubled to center leading off and Stanton reached on an infield single. Porcello rebounded to retire Didi Gregorius on a fly to right and strike out Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks.

“We were too far away from that. I was just trying to get outs,’’ Porcello said of thinking about the nohitter. Instead the Seton Hall Prep product and New Jersey native improved to 3-0 and lowered the ERA to 1.83.

Thanks to solid relief work by Domingo German, Tommy Kahnle and Adam Warren, the Red Sox didn’t pad their lead and when Judge walked, Stanton reached on an error and Gregorius walked against Marcus Walden to start the ninth, the Yankees had the bases juiced with no outs.

Sanchez drove Walden’s first pitch into the center-field triangle for a three-run double and closer Craig Kimbrel surfaced from the pen. Three batters later the game was over.

The victory pushed the 10-2 Red Sox 4 ½ lengths ahead of the 6-7 Yankees in the AL East. It wasn’t until July 7 the Yankees were that far out of the top spot last season.

After getting smoked 14-1 on Tuesday night and winning 10-7 during Wednesday night’s brawl-filled game, taking two of three from their blood rivals would have sent the Yankees to Detroit feeling good.

“This would have been nice but you know we will turn the page,’’ said Boone, whose club might suffer multiple paper cuts doing that with the way it played Thursday evening.