Yankees had better start worrying about the fans losing interest altogether

Justin Turner rifled an RBI double off Clay Holmes in the ninth inning Sunday afternoon, the go-ahead hit in a 6-5 Red Sox victory at the Stadium.

Two innings before that, he caught a first-pitch slider from Michael King cleanly, driving it 398 feet into the leftfield seats for a three-run homer that gave Boston a 5-2 lead.

Both Turner blows came shortly after the Yankees had fought back — Gleyber Torres’ two-out homer tied it at 2-2 in the sixth and Anthony Volpe’s three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh electrified the crowd even more, tying it at 5-5.

But the most interesting of sounds followed each of Turner’s go-ahead hits.

Instead of the expected boos of discontent and disgust came the sounds of silence.

Of resignation.

And it is that sound, or lack of it, that should scare managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner.

It has long been a cliche of professional sports that fan apathy is the true death knell for a given team’s season. It certainly appears as if Yankees fans have reached the apathy stage . — and they, of course, cannot be blamed for that.

After another lost weekend in a season full of them, the Yankees, fresh off a sweep at the hands of the Red Sox (and Atlanta before that) come into Tuesday night’s game against the Nationals 60-64. They’ve lost eight straight games for the first time since 1995 and are 9 1/2  games behind the Mariners for the American League’s third wild-card spot.

What Yankees fans are not apathetic about is the trio of Steinbrenner, general manager Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone, whom they deem most responsible for a season that has gone off the rails.

There isn’t much that can happen the rest of the year — other than, naturally, some kind of historic hot streak — that will placate those fans. But one move right in front of the organization, one guaranteed to give the fan base some excitement, reportedly was made Monday.

According to the YES Network, the Yankees plan to bring up two of their top minor-leaguers from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, outfielder Everson Pereira and infielder Oswald Peraza. Pereira, 22, hitting .300 with 18 homers and a .921 OPS in a combined 81 games with Double-A Somerset and Scranton, will be making his big-league debut. The slick-fielding Peraza, 23, has had a couple of brief stints with the big-league club after being beaten out by Volpe during spring training in the battle at shortstop.

Those minor-leaguers, or any of the others the organization is considering as Sept. 1 call-ups, aren’t likely to produce a roster-wide spark that launches the Yankees into the postseason. But they will spark at least something in the fans, whose relative silence already was starting to speak volumes.

Meanwhile, the Yankees are trying to figure it out.

“We’ve got to be unbelievable the rest of the way,”  Boone said after Sunday’s loss, addressing what gives him hope that his team can go on a late-season run. “So it’s not even about that. It’s about coming to try and win a game Tuesday. And then, all of a sudden, you start stacking [wins] and then an amazing thing happens. But we’re so far removed from that right now. We have to get a win first.”

First things first. Getting leads goes a long ways toward winning —  and the Yankees haven’t had one of those in more than a week, the last one occurring in the second inning in an Aug. 14 loss to Atlanta.

Yankee Stadium was filled for all three Red Sox games but, let’s face it, it’s still the Red Sox. It will be interesting to see what the crowds look like, and sound like, Tuesday through Thursday against the 57-68 Nationals — and in the month of September after the Yankees return from a three-city, 10-game trip that takes them to St. Petersburg, Detroit and Houston.

The mere mention of the Rays and the Astros  generally is enough to give the average Yankees fan night terrors. And while the Tigers long ago fell out of contention in the embarrassingly bad AL Central, AJ Hinch’s club did come into Monday 18-17 after the All-Star break, having won eight of the last 12.  

What could possibly be left for Yankees fans to cheer at that point?

A 7-3 or 8-2 trip would, obviously, alter the narrative. But realistically, the Yankees, just 11-22 post All-Star break and 6-16 since Aaron Judge's return from a toe injury, have yet to provide enough evidence they’re capable of such a trip. That and the fact that the teams ahead of them, the Red Sox included, simply appear better top-to-bottom.

One of those teams collapsing down the stretch isn’t an impossibility.

All four?

Maybe the internal numbers the Yankees often like to cite say something different, but the public odds suggest it’s a long shot. Which prompts the argument about what's worse — the fan base not really believing in the team or not caring at all?