DON’T LOOK BACK!

Boston rocks second Yanks starter as lead continues to shrink

James Paxton wasn’t as bad as Masahiro Tanaka was the night before, but that’s not saying much. The left-hander allowed seven runs in four innings in the Yankees’ 10-5 defeat to the Red Sox on Friday night, their second consecutive ugly loss at Fenway Park.

BOSTON — In the past seven games, the Yankees’ rotation has gone from terrific to terrible, and based on how the Red Sox have punished Aaron Boone’s starters, the savagery might not be winding down.

“It’s obviously been a rough week for us,’’ Boone said after the Red Sox handed the Yankees their heads for a second straight night with a 10-5 beating that was witnessed by 37,095 at Fenway Park. “All we can do is dive in and do the best we can and try to tighten things up and get things corrected.’’

That dive had better be deep, because the starters in the past seven games have been horrific.

In that stretch, Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton, CC Sabathia, Domingo German and J.A. Happ are a collective 1-4 with a 15.61 ERA. In 272/3 innings, they have given up 54 hits and 13 walks. Only because the bats covered for dismal outings in Minnesota earlier this week were the Yankees 3-4 in that stretch.

Friday night, it was Paxton pitching for the second time in that seven-game stretch, and he gave up seven runs and nine hits in four innings to drop to 5-6. For the third straight outing, the lefty gave up a home run to the first batter he faced.

Mookie Betts hit a 3-2 pitch in the home first over the Green Monster and the beating was on. Betts also homered in the third and fourth off Paxton and doubled in two runs against David Hale in the sixth. Last year’s AL MVP made a bid for a fourhomer game, which most of the sold-out crowd stayed to see, but it fell short when Zack Britton got Betts to ground out in the eighth.

In the past six games, the Yankees’ have given up 64 runs. That is the most in franchise history. Friday’s loss cut the Yankees’ lead over the second-place Rays to 8 ½ games in the AL East and left the Red Sox nine back.

Boone said Paxton’s stuff was “electric’’ and pointed out the lefty whiffed nine without issuing a walk, but admitted when he made a mistake “they were all over it.’’

Boone can often see the good in bad times, and that is the way he viewed Pax

ton’s disappointing outing.

“It was kind of a mixed bag. I thought stuff-wise at times he was really dominant, but he missed some spots against a team that is really swinging it well right now,’’ Boone said.

Paxton agreed with Boone’s assessment that he threw some good pitches, but admitted Betts was locked in to what he saw coming.

“He just wasn’t missing,’’ Paxton said of Betts, who hasn’t come close to duplicating last year when he was the AL MVP. “The first one was high and inside with pretty good [velocity] on it and he hit it out.’’

While the Red Sox scored three runs in the first, two in the third, two in the fourth and two in the sixth. the Yankees plated one run against Andrew Cashner (10-5) through six innings and the righthander finished by allowing three runs and 10 hits in 62/3 innings.

The Yankees stirred, scoring two in the seventh and two in the ninth, but it wasn’t close enough to make anybody sweat.

Even when the Yankees’ rotation was sizzling, the front office was looking to add a starter. Now, with time ticking down to next Wednesday’s trade deadline, the starters are putting the Yankees in early holes and not providing length, which taxes a bullpen that might need an addition, too.

“I went out there with everything I had and I wanted to give them some length tonight,’’ Paxton said. “I didn’t do that. Hopefully we can get this thing turned around starting [Saturday].’’