YANKEES SINK TANK

The Yankees didn’t just lose on Monday night — they face-planted. A grand, egg-laying spectacle. Two measly hits, a bullpen meltdown, and a 7-0 thud against the Twins at Target Field.

“Not on purpose, that’s for sure,” cracked Ryan McMahon. And really, that’s the insult: this was the Twins. A team the Yankees are supposed to treat like a speed bump, not a brick wall. Instead, with the AL East slipping further away thanks to Aaron Boone’s ongoing managerial gymnastics, the Yankees now have to play near-perfect baseball. Spoiler: no one plays perfect baseball.

Meanwhile, Twins righty Simeon Woods Richardson treated Target Field like his personal living room, casually shutting down MLB’s highest-scoring team for six innings. No runs, no fireworks, no excuses. He’s now silenced the league’s most prolific home run crew twice in 22 games, which almost feels rude. Carlos Rodón? Tagged with his ninth loss, despite a respectable six innings with two runs allowed.

So here we are: Yankees at 83-67, clinging to the first Wild Card slot. The Red Sox are lurking like a horror movie villain, and the AL East crown is now five games away, which may as well be five miles when you’re running in quicksand. Fans wanted a division title. What they’re staring at instead is a Wild Card scramble. Disaster feels like the right word.

And let’s not pretend otherwise: this pressure cooker is built by Boone and Brian Cashman. Wrong lineups, wrong decisions, wrong everything. Had the Yankees truly rolled with their best all season, maybe they wouldn’t be gasping for air now. Instead, they need to flip the switch immediately — or the only crown they’ll see this October is the one on Aaron Judge’s bobblehead.