NEW YORK — This time next month, the postseason will be underway.On Friday night at Yankee Stadium, it already felt like October.In a tense pitcher’s duel between Cam Schlittler and Patrick Sandoval, complete with late-game pinch-hitting and a key play at the plate, the Boston Red Sox fell 1-0 to the New York Yankees. It marked the first of four games in a crucial series with postseason implications.The loss pushed the Red Sox three games back of New York for the top wild-card spot, a position that would give them home-field advantage in the Wild Card Series, which is set to begin Sept. 29.“That’s important, I won’t shy away from that,” interim manager Chad Tracy said before the game. “I think if you get a short series, you’re able to play in your home ballpark, that stuff matters for sure.”Through 10 meetings this season, the Red Sox and Yankees are 5-5. Whichever team wins the season series will own the tiebreaker if they finish with the same record.Against that backdrop, Friday’s game was played with a lot on the line. Even still, no moment has been too big for Tracy, who got his first taste of what managing postseason baseball might be like.With New York up 1-0 in the sixth inning and a Caleb Durbin two-out walk having knocked Schlittler out of the game, Tracy pulled out all the stops, sending three pinch-hitters to the plate in succession against lefty reliever Brent Headrick. Jahmai Jones hit for Mickey Gasper and drew a walk. Eli White hit for Jarren Duran and hit a soft infield single between the mound and first to load the bases. Then Andruw Monasterio hit for Anthony Seigler and drew a full count before slicing a flyout to right, ending the inning.“You go into the game knowing you have a left-handed lane there,” Tracy said. “So if you’re going to do it and you only get one shot at it … we haven’t scored much. There’s the lane. If we’re going to try, we’re trying. And I thought all three at-bats — Eli hit the ball softly, but with his speed is able to get there. Mona worked a heck of an at-bat. So it would have been great if that ball goes in the gap and scores two or three runs, but it didn’t. That’s baseball.”Despite Schlittler holding the Red Sox scoreless through 5 2/3 innings, they had their chances, collecting five walks against him. In the fifth, Seigler walked and Ceddanne Rafaela singled to put two on with one out. Wilyer Abreu hit a liner to Yankees center fielder Trent Grisham, but Rafaela misread the play and got doubled off first base for the third out of the inning. Willson Contreras would have come up next.