WALK OF SHAME: Russell Martin heads for the dugout as Pedro Ciriaco (77), who raced home with the winning run, celebrates with Dustin Pedroia. (Getty Images)
BOSTON — Shower water hitting the floor was the only noise heard in the visitors’ clubhouse at Fenway Park, a room the size of a two-car garage.
You want to know what a pennant race loss looks and feels like, a glance inside the stillness that smothered the Yankees was all it took.
As tight as they appeared to be on the field, that’s how quiet the Yankees were following a 4-3 defeat to the last-place Red Sox inside New England’s living room that was witnessed by 37,437 and made possible by Jacoby Ellsbury’s single to right that scored Pedro Ciriaco from second with the winning run in the ninth inning.
In itself, that would sting. That it was coupled with the Orioles beating the Rays, the loss dropped the Yankees into a first-place tie with the Birds in the AL East. The Rays remained two games back of the leaders, who each have 21 games left but none against each other.
“Not necessarily, I don’t see it,’’ manager Joe Girardi said of his club looking tight. “But we had a lot of opportunities to cash in and we have to figure out a way to do it [tonight].’’
The Yankees went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine.
Not since winning three in a row from Aug. 13-15 against the Rangers have the Yankees won consecutive games, and they have dropped 13 of the last 20. Twice the Yankees had leads last night and flushed them.
Dustin Pedroia and Ellsbury erased a 1-0 Yankees edge in the third with RBI hits off Hiroki Kuroda. Leading 3-2 in the sixth because of Derek Jeter’s two-run, ground-rule double, the Yankees watched Pedroia take Kuroda over the Green Monster for a 3-3 tie.
The Yankees survived a rocky seventh inning when Russell Martin made a fielding error on a sacrifice bunt and Boone Logan didn’t cover first on a grounder to the right side. But Joba Chamberlain came in with the bases loaded and one out and stranded three.
With the score tied and David Robertson having fanned three in the eighth, Girardi opted to stick with Robertson for the ninth. Though Robertson was tagged with the loss, it was two soft singles that got him in trouble.
Ciriaco and Mike Aviles started the game-winning rally with ground singles to the left side, with Aviles’ not making it out of the infield, and Ellsbury stroked a single to right — his fourth hit — that scored Ciriaco ahead of Ichiro Suzuki’s throw.
“I was trying to make a good pitch. It was a change-up,’’ Robertson said. “I wanted it down and he would roll over on it and hit into a double play.’’
As has happened so many games this year, the Yankees didn’t hit when they needed to.
“We had plenty of opportunities to win that game,’’ said Girardi, whose lineup left the bases loaded in the first after it scored once, stranded two in the third when Jon Lester walked the first two batters and watched Eduardo Nunez get thrown out attempting to swipe second with one out in the ninth.
Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano and Martin, the three four and five hitters, went a combined 1-for-10 with five strikeouts and were hitless in four at-bats with runners in scoring position.
“We got a lot of talent,’’ said Nick Swisher, who halted an 0-for-28 slump with a first-inning double and singled in the ninth. “We know we can play better.’’
The rest of us have 21 games to see if that’s true.