Yankees do little right in unsightly loss to Cardinals with AL East lead in jeopardy

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So much for starting September on a high note.

The Yankees opened the final month of the regular season with an ugly, sloppy, unsightly loss to the Cardinals, 14-7, on Sunday in The Bronx.

Worse, they’ve lost four of five as they try to hang onto their lead over Baltimore in the AL East.

They dropped a second straight series to a National League team that’s barely in playoff contention.

“Tough day for us,’’ Aaron Boone said. “We know how important these games are, certainly. We had another opportunity to win a series that we weren’t able to finish and that sucks. We’ve got to play our best.”

That didn’t happen Sunday in a loss that featured a bit of everything: Bad starting pitching by Nestor Cortes, a terrible showing from the bullpen and some shaky defense — especially by Juan Soto.

Even with the Cardinals spending most of the afternoon making mistakes in the field, they still were able to put the Yankees away, as the Yankees gave up a season-high 21 hits.

After falling behind 7-2 in the top of the fifth, the Yankees came back to tie the game with three runs in the bottom of the fifth and two more in the sixth, but the effort was wasted thanks to a five-run seventh inning by the Cardinals, who knocked around Jake Cousins and Tommy Kahnle.

The big blow was a two-out, three-run double by Lars Nootbaar off Kahnle.

“The difference [in the game] is we couldn’t close out that inning with two outs,’’ Boone said. “It was one of those games.”

The misery began with Cortes, who’d allowed just one run over 20 ²/₃ innings in his previous three starts, but was knocked around for five runs on nine hits in four innings Sunday.

He wasn’t helped by Soto, who misplayed Brendan Donovan’s fly ball to deep right-center for a double to open the second.

Donovan scored on Jordan Walker’s single to right to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

The Yankees scored twice in the second to go ahead, but St. Louis regained the lead again in the fourth.

As the skies opened briefly in the top of the inning, Cortes gave up a pair of singles — including one by Walker that skipped by Anthony Volpe, due in part to the slick conditions.

Cortes whiffed the next two batters before Masyn Winn snuck a two-run double down the left field line.

Luken Baker followed with a two-run shot to left to make it 5-2.

Scott Effross, in his first appearance since 2022 Tommy John surgery, was awful in the fifth.

All four batters he faced hit balls clocked over 100 mph, including Walker’s two-run homer.

The Yankees stormed back against right-hander Miles Mikolas in the bottom of the inning.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. led off with a single and scored on Anthony Rizzo’s double down the left field line.

Volpe followed with a comebacker and Mikolas had Rizzo hung up between second and third, but inexplicably threw to first instead, where Paul Goldschmidt dropped it for an error.

With runners on the corners, Alex Verdugo hit an RBI single and Gleyber Torres followed with another to end Mikolas’ afternoon.

In the sixth, Volpe knocked in a run when Winn misplayed his one-hopper into a hit. Verdugo followed with a single that loaded the bases for Torres, who drilled a sacrifice fly to right-center that tied the game.

Soto then sent one to the fence in left, but Nootbaar managed to make the catch.

The game fell apart for the Yankees in the seventh.

A six-game road trip starts Monday at Texas.

“This is the right time to get hot,’’ Soto said. “We’re definitely trying.”

But at 6-8 in their last 14, the Yankees haven’t been able to get going.

“As bad as people think we’re playing and as bad as it might show we’re playing, we’re still in first place,’’ Cortes said. “It goes to show it’s there for us to take.”