Yankees unravel in fifth inning in sloppy series-opening loss to Red Sox

BOSTON — Cam Schlittler played with fire for four innings and got away with it. But then in the fifth, his defense added some lighter fluid and his start went up in flames.  Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.After Amed Rosario let a smoked ground ball go through his legs instead of turning a potential inning-ending double play, the first of four unearned runs came in on Schlittler that lifted the Red Sox to a 6-3 win over the Yankees on Thursday night at a sold-out Fenway Park. Former Yankees prospect Caleb Durbin delivered the deciding blow before the fifth inning was over, taking Schlittler deep for a two-run shot just over the Green Monster to break a 2-2 tie. The Yankees tried to mount a comeback in the ninth against their former closer, Aroldis Chapman, who loaded the bases with two outs before finally shutting the door. It was a sloppy loss for the Yankees (48-32), who committed four errors — making all six of the runs their pitchers allowed the unearned variety — and wasted some chances to cash in offensively before the scuffling Red Sox (33-46) came alive. Schlittler, who struck out nine across five innings, stranded a pair of runners in each of the first, second and fourth innings.

He might have been able to do it again in the fifth, until Rosario’s fielding error opened the floodgates. The Yankees led 2-0 entering the inning before Schlittler issued a leadoff walk to Masataka Yoshida and then gave up a single to Ceddanne Rafaela.He followed that up by striking out Wilyer Abreu on a 100 mph sinker for the second time of the night. But Willson Contreras came up next and drilled a 112.8 mph ground ball to third base, where Rosario got his glove down but not far enough as the ball zoomed right underneath it, scoring Yoshida to make it 2-1. Jarren Duran then lifted a sacrifice fly to medium-depth left field, as José Caballero’s throw ...