NEW YORK — After a 5-1 loss to the Yankees — swept here despite clinching the American League East title Wednesday— the Red Sox are making it tough on themselves in trying to secure home-field advantage at least for the divisional series.
“It’s pretty big,” Xander Bogaerts said about home-field advantage. “It’s an advantage for us. We lost the last three games and that’s not good for us.”
Bogaerts, whose 21st home run in the fourth inning was all Boston could muster against CC Sabathia and the Yankees, has hit almost three times as many homers as he did last season. Home runs are up around baseball, but Bogaerts insists he hasn’t changed much except adjust to pitchers who have made adjustments against him.
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Last year, Bogaerts hit .320 and finished second in the league in hitting. But this year he’s sacrificed some average for power, batting .294 with 89 RBIs while hitting mostly out of the No. 2 spot.
He also tagged a long drive to left later in the game that was caught and which might have been hit harder than his home run but was knocked down by the wind.
As many other Sox have struggled at the plate recently, Bogaerts has started to pick things up offensively.
Bogaerts wouldn’t use the excuse that the Sox lineup was void of starters Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, and Mookie Betts. David Ortiz, who was honored before the game in his final appearance at Yankee Stadium, was pulled after two at-bats.
“It doesn’t matter who we have out there,” Bogaerts said. “We need to win. We have good players no matter who is in the lineup. We just couldn’t get it done tonight.”
Manager John Farrell said he was not conceding home field, but needed to balance that against resting veteran players.
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Farrell said he would likely play most of his regulars in the three-game series against Toronto this weekend as that series has playoff implications for the Blue Jays, who are trying to secure a wild-card spot.
“It’s important,” Farrell said of gaining home-field advantage. “It’s pivotal. It’s something to achieve and strive for, but we needed to give some guys a day off their feet with what we’ve been through, particularly the number of road games we’ve played over the past six weeks.
“We’re going home and we’re looking to finish it off against Toronto.”
The Red Sox struggled against Sabathia, who held them to four hits and a run over 7⅓ innings in his 30th start.
Owens, making his 16th major league start, has been used as insurance for the Red Sox this season. He had made four rather forgettable spot starts for the team throughout the season (the culmination of which was a 7.79 ERA), but he’s never performed well enough to stick.
He went 10-7 with a 3.53 ERA at Pawtucket in 24 starts, but he’s always had a problem with walks. He had 81 of them in 137⅓ innings along with 135 strikeouts.
In his last major league start Aug. 21 against the Tigers, Owens allowed eight runs and two homers to go along with six walks in five innings.
Bogaerts’s homer in the fourth tied the game at 1-1.
The Yankees scored in the first inning on a two-out double by Starlin Castro, driving in Jacoby Ellsbury, who walked and stole second base. Owens showed off good secondary pitches, including a slower curveball that had Yankee hitters off balance.
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In the fifth, Owens gave the Yankees the lead before departing with two outs. Owens, who had made an instructional league start to stay sharp, wasn’t expected to go any deeper than five, maybe six innings.
He allowed an infield chopper to Aaron Hicks, which went for a single to lead off the fifth. He then retired the next two batters before Ellsbury doubled to center, driving in Hicks with the go-ahead run. Owens was replaced by Heath Hembree — a bubble guy in terms of making the postseason roster — and he retired AL Rookie of the Year candidate Gary Sanchez to end the inning.
Within the makeshift lineup, left fielder Andrew Benintendi batted second but was overmatched by Sabathia, who struck him out twice.
Farrell said he wanted to use his bullpen over the last few games. In the seventh inning, he wound up using Hembree and lefthander Robby Scott, who walked Tyler Austin with the bases loaded to make it 3-1 and then tossed a wild pitch allowing the fourth Yankees’ run to cross.
Farrell also used Junichi Tazawa, who hadn’t pitched since Sept. 18 against the Yankees. Tazawa is another reliever on the bubble for the postseason roster. After a leadoff single by Ellsbury, Tazawa got out of the inning, retiring the next three batters.
Robbie Ross Jr. allowed three walks and a run in two-thirds of an inning in the eighth, and the Sox also got a look at Noe Ramirez, who pitched a third of an inning.
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Ortiz, who will go from the hoopla of Yankee Stadium to the hoopla of Boston this weekend, said it’s important for the Red Sox to seek and secure home-field advantage.
“We love playing in front of our fans and the more we can do that, the better it is for us,” Ortiz said. “We have to get ready for the playoffs, but we want to get back on track and make sure we’re going strong by the time we play next Thursday. We want to have the majority of the games at home and we know to get that done, we have to fight for it.”
Box score: Yankees 5, Red Sox 1
Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeteAbe.