Danny Jansen should fit in just fine. The newly acquired catcher acquitted himself nicely in his Red Sox debut, going 2 for 3 with a walk and an aggressive heads-up baserunning play in which he went from first to third to set up a great scoring opportunity late.

But if the Red Sox are going to hang in the playoff hunt, they’re going to need even more help.

This weekend’s series against the Yankees will go down as both a missed opportunity and a clear indicator that the Red Sox have more work to do ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline. After blowing an opportunity Saturday in which they were one strike away from victory, the Red Sox lost Sunday night’s series finale 8-2.

Boston has now lost three straight series to open the second half and will go into the last week of July one game back of the Kansas City Royals for the last American League Wild Card spot. Yet despite the 2-7 start out of the All-Star break, Red Sox manager Alex Cora says the team isn’t wavering in its belief.

“We had the ball in the ninth inning a few times and we didn’t finish games, obviously it doesn’t look great but from my end we’re OK,” Cora said.

“I don’t think a stretch of nine games dictates who we are,” he added later.

Unlike the series’ first two games — which were exciting, back-and-forth affairs — the Yankees controlled Sunday’s finale from the jump.

New York came out and scored three runs off Red Sox ace Tanner Houck in the top of the first. Alex Verdugo led off the game with a double, Aaron Judge scored him with an RBI single up the right field line, and after Austin Wells followed with a double Gleyber Torres drove in both with a two-run single to make it 3-0.

Houck settled down after that and retired the next six batters he faced, but an error by Tyler O’Neill in the fourth proved costly, allowing Cohasset native Ben Rice to extend the lead to 4-0 with a sacrifice fly.

Up to that point Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon had been dealing, but as twilight fell across Boston a rare night rainbow appeared above Fenway Park stretching high into the dark purple sky. Whether or not the rainbow was any kind of omen, the club found some good fortune, at least for a few minutes.

Having managed just one hit through the first three innings, the Red Sox immediately ripped off back-to-back home runs plus a triple to send the Fenway Faithful into a frenzy. Rob Refsnyder started the rally by sending one over the Green Monster onto Lansdowne Street, Connor Wong found the top of the wall right afterwards and Rafael Devers went the other way and made it all the way to third after new Yankees outfielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. misplayed the bounce off the wall.

But the Red Sox couldn’t get Devers home or continue the rally, and that was about as good as it got.

“We had him on the ropes but we didn’t cash in,” Cora said of Rodon.

Houck struggled with his command, throwing only 52% of his pitches for strikes and tying a career-high with four walks, but he hung in there and gave his team a chance to win. The right-hander ultimately allowed four runs (three earned) over six innings for his 15th quality start of the season.

Houck said afterwards he feels fine physically, but he feels like his timing and delivery have been out of whack lately, which has contributed to his recent struggles.

“Ultimately it’s finding that rhythm, finding that time again and really just showing up each and every day and continuing to work on the stuff,” Houck said. “It’s not always going to be fun, not always going to be pretty, you’re going to be frustrated more days than your going to feel like it’s easy, but if it was easy then everyone could do it.”

Outside of the fourth-inning fireworks, Rodon was dialed in. The left-hander allowed two runs on five hits over 6.1 innings, striking out seven and walking one. He threw 105 pitches, and other than the fourth he allowed just three other baserunners.

Once Houck was out of the game the Yankees extended their lead against the depleted Red Sox bullpen, getting a sacrifice fly from Austin Wells in the seventh, a two-run double by Oswaldo Cabrera in the eighth and a sacrifice fly from DJ LeMahieu in the ninth. Boston’s defense endured an ugly night as well, with the club collectively committing three errors, including two in the eighth inning by Romy Gonzalez and Devers.

Boston also walked seven batters as a team, which is tied for a season high, and offensively the Red Sox went 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position.

Put it all together, and you have a night the Red Sox would prefer to forget.

Though one loss won’t make or break the Red Sox season, what happens in the next 48 hours will help shape the team’s destiny. Boston will get reinforcements off the injured list in the coming weeks — first basemen Triston Casas and high-leverage relievers Chris Martin and Justin Slaten are all due back by mid-August — but with big series against fellow playoff contenders like Seattle, Texas, Kansas City and Houston coming up in the next two weeks, Boston needs all the help it can get as soon as possible.

For now the Red Sox (55-49) will turn their attention to the Seattle Mariners, who trail the Red Sox by a half-game in the Wild Card standings and who have already made some impactful trade deadline acquisitions.

“We’ve got another really good team coming in with Seattle, they just made some moves too with Randy (Arozarena), he brings a lot of life to any team so I’m sure they’re going to be playing even harder than usual,” Refsnyder said. “It’s going to be another tough series but our schedule the last couple of months, there’s nothing easy about it, so we’ve got to figure it out and figure it out fast. I’m confident in the group that we have here that we can do that. Just regroup tomorrow and come out swinging.”

Nick Pivetta will get the ball for Monday’s opener, followed by James Paxton in his team debut on Tuesday and Brayan Bello on Wednesday.