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DAN SHAUGHNESSY

After clinch party put on hold (again), are you worried about the Red Sox?

Red Sox manager Alex Cora collects the ball from starter David Price after he gave up six runs in 5<span class="web_fractions">⅓</span> innings in Wednesday night’s 10-1 loss to the Yankees.JASON SZENES/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

NEW YORK — Are the Red Sox going to have to pack up all that champagne and take it with them to Cleveland?

Waiting for the Red Sox to clinch the American League East is starting to feel like waiting for Yaz’s 3,000th hit, or Tim Wakefield’s 200th win. It’s like waiting to close on your dream home, or waiting for Larry Bird to pick up a check.

The Sox were pummeled in the Bronx Wednesday, 10-1, and so the Magic Number — which hasn’t moved since Sunday — remains stuck at two. Boston leads the division by 9½ games with 10 to play, but the Sox have managed to breathe life into a Yankees team here this week. They’ll have only one more chance to clinch on the Yankee lawn. And suddenly the idea of facing the Yanks in October does not sound so sweet. Who wants to be the new edition of the 2001 Mariners?

Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner are not big fans of the Yankee Stadium experience, but they’ve endured two long nights here and plan to come back again Thursday. Dave Dombrowski and Tony LaRussa are also here for the party. But the goggles and cellophane remain in storage.

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We thought the Sox might do it Tuesday afternoon when they were scheduled to play an afternoon game in the Bronx, but that game was postponed for six hours due to a rain forecast. When they finally played, things looked good as the Sox took a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh. But then Neil Walker hit a three-run homer. We thought the Sox were going to steal the game back in the ninth, but no. They lost, 3-2.

No big deal, we figured. They’ll wrap it up Wednesday night at the House That George Built. David Price was on the mound and he’s been unhittable. Price came into the night with a 5-0 record and a 1.56 ERA in his previous nine starts. It felt like a sure thing against a Yankee team that had lost 11 of its last 20. The Yanks haven’t been the same since they were left for dead after losing four straight in Boston in August.

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But New York is Price’s House of Horrors. This is where he skipped a start because of too much Fortnite in May. This is where he was routed in July for five homers in 3⅓ innings of an 11-1 loss that was quite possibly the worst start of his decorated career.

Price gave up three homers Wednesday (all cheapies to right field) and left trailing, 6-1, with one out in the sixth. That makes for eight homers in 8⅔ innings over his last two starts in Yankee Stadium. Folks like to mock the ridiculous shots that sail out in right field in the Bronx, but it’s the same advantage righty pop fly hitters have in Fenway. The Yankees know how to take advantage. They have outhomered the Sox this season, 246-189. Price has a 9.79 ERA, yielding 13 homers in 30⅓ innings while pitching for the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium. He is clearly not a candidate for any potential playoff games in the Bronx.

The Red Sox are still a cartoonish 103-49 and will almost certainly wind up with more wins than any team in Sox history (105 in 1912), but their first two games in New York exposed obvious flaws. Boston’s Raging Bullpen — a hot mess much of the year and in tatters at this hour — coughed it up on Tuesday and a Buckner-esque error by third baseman Eduardo Nunez allowed a pair of runs Wednesday. The Cora-Men have stopped hitting homers (11 in September, fewest in the majors), Mitch Moreland is looking up at .250, Sandy Leon will never see the Mendoza Line, and JBJ is forever .230.

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Meanwhile, the plan of having Chris Sale return as a dominant ace Oct. 5 is hardly a lock. Sale has pitched only nine innings since July 27 and will be working on eight days rest when the playoffs start. And of course, we will have to remind you one million times that the starting pitchers on the Sox active roster have a combined zero wins in an aggregate 15 postseason starts.

But why be negative? Why worry about any of it at this hour? Alex Cora admitted Wednesday that the rest of this regular season is nothing more than a tuneup for the playoffs.

“The most important thing for us is to be ready for what’s next,’’ Cora said.

This is why you will see some goofy stuff the rest of the way. Like Craig Kimbrel in the eighth inning or Nathan Eovaldi pitching out of the bullpen. Or Steven Wright closing. Or Sox starters performing as three-inning “openers.’’ Cora is not going to manage to help Sale win the Cy Young, J.D. Martinez win the Triple Crown, or Mookie Betts win the MVP. He is not going to manage to beat the Yankees, Indians, and Orioles over the next week and a half. He is going to manage to win those 11 games in October.

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So the Sox aren’t going to be bothered by a couple of losses in New York and they don’t care about making a statement against the Tribe this weekend. But Wednesday night was bad. And as we near the end of this historic Red Sox regular season, waiting for the inevitable clinch party . . . how are you feeling about your team?


Dan Shaughnessy can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com