NEW YORK -- The bullpen, the heavily scrutinized bullpen, surprisingly became one of the few things the Red Sox could rely on during their stunning early-season slump.

But that all changed in a hurry on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, and the timing could not have been worse in what wound up a gut-punch of a 5-3 loss that dropped the defending World Series champions to 6-13.

The Red Sox, off to their worst start since 1996, are in last place in the American League East and trail the first-place Rays by 8 1/2 games. After an off-day in Florida on Thursday, Boston opens an important three-game series against Tampa Bay on Friday night.

“One thing’s for sure, disconnect from this, enjoy Florida and hang out and be ready for Friday,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora.

There certainly was no enjoyment to be had from the late innings of Wednesday.

Nathan Eovaldi had been stellar, staking the Red Sox to a 3-1 lead after six tremendous innings in which he allowed one unearned run on three hits and one walk while striking out six. It was a much-needed effort from Eovaldi, who had struggled in his first three starts.

But once Eovaldi handed it over to his relievers, the game fell apart. Brandon Workman loaded the bases with one out on a hit and two walks, while facing the Nos. 6-9 hitters in New York’s injury-depleted batting order.

“It’s not good,” said Workman. “We’ve been struggling as a team. As I said, we were in position to win one today, and I came in there and loaded the bases and got one out, so it’s definitely difficult to swallow that.”

On came Ryan Brasier, who left an 0-2 fastball over the heart of the plate, and Brett Gardner smashed it for a grand slam to right that gave the Yankees their first lead of the night.

“Bullpen guys, it's our job to come in and get outs and hold the lead, and I made a bad pitch on a good count for me and it bit me in the butt,” said Brasier. “So get ready for the series in Tampa Bay.”

The Yankees swept the brief two-game series between the rivals. The Red Sox have yet to win a series this season.

This weekend would be about the perfect time for Boston's drought to end.

“We’ve got to go down there and win the series, that’s the most important thing. You win two out of three, or you sweep them and you move on,” said Cora. “That’s the goal in every series. We haven’t done it yet. It would be a good time to do it in [St. Petersburg].”

While the bullpen did, in fact, lose the game, Cora saw other team breakdowns before it got to that.

Once again, the Red Sox were inconsistent offensively. The start was good, as J.D. Martinez hammered a solo shot in the first and Christian Vázquez belted a two-run shot in the second to make it 3-0 Boston.

The Red Sox didn’t score again over the final seven innings.

“We haven’t done it consistently,” Cora said. “It looked better today, but if you really look at the game, we had a chance to take the starter out, get to the middle relievers and all that and add on, and we didn’t.”

Meanwhile, Mookie Betts continued to struggle mightily at the plate, going 0-for-4 on Wednesday. He is slashing .200/.305/.371.

“We’ll take a look at it,” said Cora. “Hitting balls off the end. It looked like he expanded the zone a little bit with two strikes again, so we’ll keep working with him.”

The Red Sox have a lot of work to do to dig out of an early hole bigger than anyone could have imagined. After a brief respite, the defending champs will again try to find their way starting Friday.

“Everyone likes an off-day,” said Brasier. “Get a little recharge and get back at it.”