Yankees are running out of time for damage control

Giancarlo Stanton’s final swing of Sunday’s game landed about 16 feet short of the netting above Monument Park, landing in the glove of Astros centerfielder Jake Meyers to seal the Yankees’ 9-7 loss.

The 106-mph blast came that close to delivering a walk-off homer on an afternoon in which the Yankees stranded 15, 14 in the last six innings. Not to mention Carlos Rodon getting rocked again before leaving with hamstring tightness in the third inning and Wandy Peralta wearing this L for a worn-out bullpen.

Later, manager Aaron Boone and a few players talked about the positives from such an effort, as we’ve grown accustomed to by now.

“I think that was actually a really big momentum boost for us moving forward,” Harrison Bader said.

Bader is a relentlessly upbeat guy as well as a go-to spokesman for these Yankees overall, and he’s not the glass-half-empty type. We’d expect nothing less. But there’s no place for moral victories in early August for a team hanging on to the periphery of the wild-card race at 4 1⁄2 games out of the third spot.

Credit the Yankees for rallying back from 5-1 to tie the score thanks to the Astros’ charity (12 walks overall; thanks, Angel Hernandez), but their margin for error has been shrinking for weeks now — and this was a particularly tough week for this team’s playoff odds.

In the big picture, they managed to at least stay afloat after battling the Orioles (1-2), Rays (1-2) and Astros (2-2). That was a stretch that could have knocked them out faster than Jose Ramirez’s right hook to Tim Anderson’s jaw.

But the Yankees also suffered some lasting damage that could prove difficult to shake off. Only days after welcoming back Aaron Judge in Baltimore, they lost Domingo German to season-ending alcohol rehab, Anthony Rizzo to post-concussion symptoms for an undetermined period and Rodon on Sunday to a hamstring injury.

Though it’s fair to debate the actual value of these players, based on their performance to this point, that’s still two-fifths of the starting rotation and a three-time All-Star first baseman. Throw in the fact that Luis Severino was on his way to the bullpen before Rodon’s injury — Sevy’s rotation fate now hangs on Monday’s MRI result for the $162 million lefty — along with general manager Brian Cashman doing practically zippo to upgrade the roster at the trade deadline, and this was not the best way to dive into what amounts to the final 50-game qualifying stretch for the October tournament.

“It’s definitely taken a hit, obviously,” Boone said of his dented rotation. “So we just got to make do. We’ve got a lot of good pitchers and we’ll keep on grinding.”

Nestor Cortes’ encouraging return Saturday (one hit, eight strikeouts) was something for the plus side of the ledger. But the impact of his four-inning stint, as impressive as it was, resonated through Sunday’s loss, thanks to Rodon’s premature exit.

Boone was able to get five outs from Jhony Brito but still had to go to Peralta much earlier than he had hoped, and the bottom half of the Astros’ order smacked him around for four runs in the sixth, including back-to-back homers by No. 8 hitter Meyers (two homers, six RBIs) and No. 9 hitter Martin Maldonado.

Boone said afterward that most of his high-leverage righties needed a day off, with Clay Holmes being held for a potential save situation. Peralta is not a lefty specialist, obviously, so it wasn’t unreasonable for Boone to try to squeeze him through the weaker part of Houston’s lineup. Instead, the gambit exploded in his face.

On this day, however, Peralta was a stopgap measure that failed to hold. The real arsonist here was Rodon, who is going to start hearing some Carl Pavano comparisons if this keeps up. With Sunday’s two home runs, he’s teed up eight in 27 innings this season, including six homers in his last 16 2/3 innings. His ERA jumped to 7.33 in six starts after he missed the first three months because of forearm issues and back problems.

Rodon dug a 5-1 hole for the Yankees, then pulled up lame. The sellout crowd of 46,345 even booed him as he walked off, which was excessively cruel treatment of an injured player.

“I’m pretty frustrated,” Rodon said. “This is not the way I wanted to come out here and perform, especially today. I felt like we needed to win. I wanted to put that W on the board .  .  . and it wasn’t good.”

Rodon spoke optimistically about his hamstring, saying that he doesn’t think it will wind up being an IL situation after Monday’s MRI. He even suggested he could have stayed in, calling his removal a “precautionary thing.”

The Yankees are running out of time for damage control. They need wins ASAP. But after a tumultuous past week, those Ws could be even harder to find.

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball’s Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.