Benintendi’s 8th-inning miscue costly

BOSTON — The Fenway Park crowd was electric with hostility each time Alex Rodriguez came to the plate on Thursday night, but they were reduced to groans when the Red Sox let a second straight rivalry game get away in a 4-2 defeat to the Yankees in the rubber match of a three-game series.

The Bronx Bombers scored three in the eighth against Brad Ziegler to quickly overturn the 2-1 lead Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodriguez departed with.

Gary Sanchez, Aaron Hicks and Brett Gardner got the rally started with singles. With the bases loaded and one out, Jacoby Ellsbury hit a liner to left that Andrew Benintendi lost in the lights for a two-run double.

“It went in the lights, but that’s no excuse,” Benintendi said. “I should have caught it.”

A-Rod (0-for-4) hit a dribbler in front of the plate in his final Fenway at-bat with the Yankees that scored Gardner for an insurance run.

“Not how I pictured it when I woke up this morning,” Rodriguez said, “but definitely glad that run came in and we won the game.”

E-Rod was marvelous for Boston, allowing three hits and a run while walking one and striking out six over seven innings. It was the second straight night a Boston starter left with a lead and had to settle for a no-decision. The lefty came out after 93 pitches, as Red Sox manager John Farrell felt his best chance to win was for Ziegler and Craig Kimbrel to pitch the last two innings.

“Where we were in the lineup with the guys that have done damage to him up to that point, felt like with Ziegler and Kimbrel available, turn it over to those two guys to close it out,” said Farrell. “He did an outstanding job for those seven innings of work. On a hot, muggy night, I felt like that was the time to make a …

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