Whether it’s someone who covers the team for a living, or the guy who likes to get loud about the Sox in your group chat, or your grandparent who couldn’t find the game on Apple TV+ on Friday, or that one random guy from high school you still follow on Twitter for some reason, everyone was saying it:

The Red Sox (81-68) had to win this weekend’s three-game series with the Yankees (83-65).

Three best pitchers all lined up to face a team you were 8-2 against on the season.

Bitter rival sitting a percentage-point ahead of you in the Wild Card standings heading into Friday.

A true reigniting of baseball’s best rivalry, bringing us the most important matchup between the two teams since their wild card game at Fenway back in 2021.

Had to have it. No excuses.

Welp, that didn’t happen.

After being two-hit by the Yankees on Friday night in a 4-1 loss, the Red Sox followed that up with another unimpressive day offensively, losing to New York 5-3 to clinch a series win for the Bronx Bombers.

Here’s nine takeaways from Boston’s bad loss on Saturday:

1. RISP issues persist

The chief issue with the Red Sox offense continued to rear its ugly head on Saturday, as Boston stranded four runners in scoring position over the course of the ballgame.

For those who struggle with math (like me) - just get two of those four across home plate, and you’re heading into extras with the home field-ish advantage (more on that later) behind you.

If this team makes it to October, and it seems like manager Alex Cora might have his doubts, this problem will be the reason why they are bounced early.

“The positive is we’re getting on base more often,” a downtrodden Cora told the media postgame. “Now we just have to cash in. I think we hit some balls hard, we struck out in certain situations, but overall much better offensively than the last 5 or 6 days.”

Yes, you improved from being two-hit one night prior. Congratulations.

And I understand wanting to spin the problem into as much of a positive as you can publicly to avoid creating more noise. I get it.

But behind the scenes, the message has to be more firm. Some of the hitting, or lack thereof, this team has shown in these high leverage situations of late has been abysmal.

And if we’re being honest, the Rafael Devers trade looks worse and worse by the day.

This is a massive problem with a capital “P,” and I don’t know if they have the horses to overcome it down the stretch.

2. Bello was fine, but…

This was supposed to be a team Brayan Bello (11-7, 3.25 ERA) dominates. Heading into Friday, he had a 5-3 career record against the Yankees with an ERA of 1.95 to go along with 49 strikeouts across 10 appearances.

And while Bello battled his way through five full innings after a 26-pitch top of the first, his 4 earned runs weren’t good enough for a team that’s clearly in the midst of an offensive rut at the worst possible time.

“[He] wasn't effective,” Cora said of Bello postgame. “I don't know what the ratio was, as far as strikes percentage - probably 55%, right? From the get-go, right? Hit by pitch, the walk. I mean, [Ben] Rice hit the double. Walked the big guy.

“He battled, gave us five. But as far as, like, strike throwing, today was a challenge for him.”

Which leads to my next takeaway…

3. Antennas are back up on Bello and Giolito

To be honest, they were never really down on either guy.

Every time I’ve made an appearance on WEEI or a podcast about this team, I’m always the first to say, “They’ve been great, but…”

Bello is 26 years old, and has never had to pitch in games like this ever in his young career. And until this year, the jury was out on if he was going to be a true “dude” for you moving forward, especially after how he started the 2024 season. When he came back from injury in April, conventional wisdom had Bello as the team’s fourth or fifth starter behind the likes of Tanner Houck (0-3, 8.04 ERA), Walker Buehler (8-7, 5.29 ERA) and some mix of the young guys in Hunter Dobbins (4-1, 4.13 ERA) and Richard Fitts (2-4, 5.00 ERA).

But start after start, Bello looked like the guy who we all hoped he’d be heading into Opening Day 2024, becoming one of the team’s most reliable arms over the last four-plus months.

With that said, I’ve continued to hold my breath. The highs of Bello during his career have had fans unfairly calling him “Baby Pedro.” The lows have shown us a pitcher as erratic as any that have come through Fenway Park.

With the weight of this specific game being what it was, Bello didn’t give you what you needed. And I worry that this is an example of what you’re going to get in a game two-or-three in a wild card series a few weeks from now.

Lucas Giolito (10-4, 3.31 ERA), on the other hand, is a guy that came into this season with basically no expectations. Having missed all of 2024 after a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament as well as a flexor strain in his right elbow required him to have surgery, I had no idea what this team was getting from the 31-year-old.

And if you’re being honest, neither did you.

What we’ve seen from Giolito this season has been an absolute revelation, looking much more like the pitcher he did in his prime with the White Sox than the guy who bounced between three different teams in 2023.

But when he’s been bad in 2025, he’s been really bad.

There’s the recent example of his game in Arizona (73-75) last Saturday, where he allowed 4 runs on 7 hits in 5 innings of work.

But what I still can’t shake is that outing at Citizens Bank Park in late July, where he allowed 5 earned runs off 6 hits, 4 of which were home runs. After four innings and 57 pitches, his day was done. The Red Sox ended up winning that night in what was one of the craziest regular season games of the year in all of baseball, so this start gets forgotten.

Not for me.

These last two nights for Giolito and Bello being as mid as they were have me feeling some type of way as the postseason gets closer.

4. Speaking of arms, how we feelin’ about Chapman?

In his last time out, Aroldis Chapman’s streak of consecutive batters faced without allowing a hit ended at 50, as the 37-year-old blew a save opportunity in Sacramento (68-80). Boston fell just short of sweeping the A’s as Chapman allowed the walk-off, and that’s a win they’d love to have in their back pocket as of now.

With that said, Chapman (29 saves, 1.28 ERA) is still in the midst of having one of the best seasons of his fringe-Hall of Fame career. You could excuse that one away as a one-off, and hope your two-time World Series champion bounces back for the series of the year against one of his former teams.

But for a second consecutive outing, Chapman looked human.

Coming on in the ninth for a non-save situation, Chapman allowed a single to center for Aaron Judge with two outs and no one on base, with his team only down 4-3. Had he gotten Judge out, the Red Sox are headed into the bottom of the final frame feeling a lot better about their chances.

Instead, just one batter after Judge, Cody Bellinger hit an RBI double off the wall on the ninth pitch of the at bat to give New York a more-comfortable 5-3 lead.

And while it didn’t ultimately amount to another run for the Yankees, Chapman did throw a wild pitch while facing his next batter in Jazz Chisholm, advancing Bellinger to third and putting himself in more trouble with his team already down two runs.

For the first time in a Red Sox uniform, Chapman had consecutive bad outings.

With that said, Cora isn’t worried.

Here’s what he said postgame:

He might not be, but I think it’s fair if you are.

I’m certainly not as worried about Chapman as I am about Giolito and Bello.

5. One night after I gave them credit, the Fenway Faithful has a bad outing

I wrote about this on Friday, but I thought game one of the series saw a Fenway crowd that had reclaimed its home field advantage away from the tri-staters who had routinely bought up large swaths of tickets in recent years.

Even though they lost in embarrassing fashion, it still felt like Red Sox Nation was controlling the environment that night.

On Saturday afternoon, that was not the case.

As the Yankees poured on two runs in the first inning off Bello, it sounded like a Yankees’ home game.

It wasn’t quite as loud as the opposing fans were for that Friday night Dodgers game earlier this season, but it was pretty damn close.

That fervor from the New York fans persisted throughout the evening, culminating in a sizable cheer for the Yankees when they clinched the game-and-series on the final out.

Maybe this was a case of Saturday being an easier day for CT/NY/NJ residents to travel up to Boston, rather than trying to get here for the Friday game?

I don’t know what it was, but it was a noticeable difference just one night later.

6. Cora’s pregame mood swing was warranted

As I wrote about pregame, we got a different Cora on Saturday afternoon pregame than we did on Friday afternoon pregame.

His mood had done a full 180 from the day prior, going from joking about multiple people trying to pick up his tab at Legal Sea Foods in the Seaport because of their excitement for where the team was at, to throwing caution to the wind on the idea of his team being a shoo-in for the postseason.

“I think we should stop talking October,” Cora said when asked if it was important for him to figure out a consistent lefty lineup before the postseason arrives.

“To be honest with you, there's a lot of stuff going on, and we have to play better. I'm not saying we're in a bad spot, but I think we have to wait to see if October is part of this.”

With his team now 5.5 games back of the AL East lead held by Toronto (86-62), the division feels like a long shot with 13 games left in the regular season, which includes three against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.

And as of publishing, Boston now sits just a half-game up on the Mariners (80-68) for the second wild card spot in the American League, with Texas not far behind both teams at 79-70 overall.

The postseason is no guarantee for this team right now. With one more to go against New York along with tough series ahead with the Jays, Rays (73-75) and Tigers (84-65), it’s a very real possibility that Boston could be on the outside looking in this October.

If that does happen, their streak of missing the postseason would officially reach four straight seasons, which would be their longest such-stretch since missing in four straight seasons from 1991 to 1994.

Crazy, right?

Let’s hope this doesn’t happen. But it can’t be ignored at this point.

7. It doesn’t sound like Roman Anthony is coming back anytime soon

I wrote on Friday about how much this offense misses him.

And on Saturday, Cora’s “update” on Anthony’s rehab from his left oblique strain made it crystal clear to me that the 21-year-old isn’t going to be a part of any early playoff rounds (if they’re still playing baseball).

I put “update” in quotes, because it wasn’t much of one.

When asked where he was in the early stages of the rehab process, Cora said he “thinks” they’re going to start incorporating walking on a treadmill.

Nothing about hitting or fielding or real conditioning. We’re talking about an exercise your mom does with her friends on a Sunday morning.

This offense has struggled without him, and it remains a bummer that he won’t be a part of whatever the end of this season is for Boston.

8. At least one reinforcement could be on the way very soon

Wilyer Abreu, on the other hand, appears to be getting close to a return, with Cora telling the media Saturday that he anticipates his Gold Glove outfielder to return at some point next week, possibly when the A’s are in town. He’s been out since August 17 with a right calf injury.

I watched Abreu go through his pregame warmup at Fenway today, and he was moving really well while fielding fly balls in the outfield while wearing a vest that measures his “percentage” - which Cora joked pregame that he had no idea what that actually meant.

What he did know is that the vest was reading 86%, and that the team wants him at 90% before bringing him back from injury.

Getting Abreu back in the lineup will help, but it won’t solve the inconsistencies that have plagued Boston all season long.

Don’t get me wrong, it’ll help.

But don’t start buying your playoff tickets just yet.

9. Imagine if the Red Sox had signed Max Fried?

They tried!

Ultimately, big brother in the Bronx handed out the biggest bag of money, signing the lefty ace to an eight-year deal worth $218 million.

And on Saturday, he reminded everyone how nice it would’ve been to have him and Garrett Crochet (15-5, 2.57 ERA) as this team’s dynamic duo in 2025

Max Fried (17-5, 3.03 ERA) earned his major league-leading 17th win, allowing just 2 runs on 9 hits in 5.3 innings. He was working on a shutout before Alex Bregman hit a solo shot with two outs in the fifth inning.

Fried is good.

It’s really unfortunate that he’s going to be playing for your biggest rival for the better part of the next decade.

More Takeaways:

- Homers tonight from Bregman and a pinch-hitting Jarren Duran could be the jumpstarts both these guys need here in mid September. Neither player has played particularly well of late.

Duran was your best player in 2024, and now he’s not even starting against lefties. Bregman was your biggest free agent prize of the offseason, and yet his numbers aren’t exactly what we all expected given his career dominance as a hitter at Fenway. Boston needs both of these guys to wake up in a real way.

- Shoutout to Romy Gonzalez, whose dominance against left-handed pitching now his MLB-leading hit streak up to 13 straight games after reaching on a single to open the ballgame.

- I met David Ortiz tonight. It was awesome. Got to meet Pedro Martinez the night before. That was awesome, too. I miss that era of baseball in Boston with every fiber of my being.

First pitch on Sunday is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET, with Crochet taking the bump for Boston and Will Warren (8-6, 4.22 ERA) on the mound for New York.

Don’t get swept, guys.

Just don’t.

Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.