Tight losses mounting for Red Sox

BOSTON — Tight losses over the last three weeks have led to an exasperating stretch of baseball for the Red Sox, who are 8-13 since finishing a two-game sweep of the Giants on July 20. Nine of the defeats have been by two runs or fewer.

So it figures that, amid a stretch like this, a team would have untimely and unlucky occurrences such as what took place in the eighth inning of Thursday’s 4-2 loss to the Yankees.

With Brad Ziegler trying to hold a 2-1 lead with the bases loaded and one out, Jacoby Ellsbury hit a routine liner to left that looked like, at worst, a game-tying sacrifice fly.

But as left fielder Andrew Benintendi got ready to snare it, he was blinded by the Fenway Park lights. It sailed past him for a two-run double that put New York in the lead for the first time all game.

Following the game, the Red Sox’s No. 2 prospect showed composure and accountability in the first moment of adversity of his young career.

“It went in the lights, but that’s no excuse. I should have caught it,” Benintendi said. “I think it was just one of those things. Not much you can do about it. I tried to put my glove up where I thought it was going to be. It just went right over my glove.”

In …

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