The New York Yankees can hit the baseball out of the ballpark as well as any team in the major leagues, and that will always give them a chance to win any game. They also field the baseball as poorly as any team in the major leagues, and that can cost them games. 

The latter issue was on display once again on Thursday night in a 6-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox to kick off an absolutely massive four-game series in the American League wild-card race.

Not only did the Yankees lose to allow Boston to keep gaining ground in the standings, but they also kind of gave it away in the field.

The issues started in the top of the second inning when the Yankees made three errors, including a throwing error from catcher Ben Rice to bring in Boston's first run.

The fielding miscues continued in the top of the ninth when first baseman Paul Goldschmidt committed the Yankees' fourth error of the game, allowing the inning to extend for Roman Anthony to come to bat.

He used that at-bat to pretty much put the game out of reach with an absolute moonshot of a home run.

These fundamental errors and mistakes were a problem for the Yankees a year ago, and they remain a problem now. They are also not going away anytime soon, and they keep showing in big moments — and in big games. Until they figure out a way to get that changed — and it might be too late for this roster to do so — they are going to have some big concerns going into October. 

Hitting home runs is great. 

But not consistently making routine mistakes and giving good teams extra outs is the type of thing that not even home runs can always overcome. 

Overall, the Yankees are a very good team. Until they clean up these mistakes, they won't be a great team.