The Yankees are .500 against teams above .500.

They dropped three of four this weekend to the Red Sox, against whom they have won just two of 10 contests this season.

Aaron Boone’s bunch has been smacked around by the class of the American League this season, a combined 7-19 against Boston, Toronto, Houston and Detroit.

But beating the best is a challenge for another day.

Wrecking the worst can get them to October, too.

That is exactly what they did Monday, when the Yankees made the Nationals pitching staff look as if it does not belong in a 10-5 series-opening destruction in The Bronx.

The Yankees (71-60) have won a pair since dropping three straight to the Red Sox and have to be more comfortable playing the NL East cellar dwellers than the AL contenders.

Ben Rice, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jasson Domínguez drilled home runs, Cody Bellinger drove in three and every Yankees starter tallied at least one hit for eight innings of the most encouraging, cleanly played and dominant evening of the club’s season.

The ninth inning — in which Yerry De los Santos and Mark Leiter Jr. combined to allow five runs — was less aesthetically pleasing.

On a night that celebrated the musical “Hamilton,” Cam Schlittler (six scoreless innings) and the Yankees offense (12 hits, four walks) got the job done.

There were the hallmarks of the 2025 (and 2024 and 2023 and …) Yankees with the long balls present.

Rice cracked a no-doubter deep into the right field bleachers in the third inning — the 435-foot shot the deepest of his career — Chisholm added his own, a stylish swing and bat drop in the fifth for his career-best 25th homer of the year and Domínguez added on with a three-run shot (his first homer since July 23) to turn the game into a laugher in the seventh inning.

The Yankees’ 218 home runs are easily the most in the majors.

But there also were encouraging, smaller moments for a team that faces criticism of being too dinger dependent.

Their first run arrived in the first, when Rice and Aaron Judge worked walks, advanced on a passed ball and Rice scored because Bellinger lifted a sacrifice fly to deep right-center.

The Yankees broke the game open in the fifth, when José Caballero — starting in place of Anthony Volpe — got a rally started with a single, moved to second on a Trent Grisham single, moved to third on a daring tag-up on a fly out from Rice then scored when Judge doubled into the right field corner.

Bellinger followed with a two-run single before Chisholm’s blast made the rest of the proceedings elementary.

The Yankees offense was far better than it needed to be with Schlittler on the mound.

For six strong innings, the hard-throwing righty allowed virtually nothing and technically four hits and three walks while striking out eight.

He came out firing — his 100.6 mph heat that punched out James Wood in the first inning was Schlittler’s fastest pitch of the season — and he returned to that four-seamer when he (infrequently) found himself in trouble.

Washington went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position against Schlittler, who had another gear when he needed it.

Two Nationals reached in the fourth, and a calm Schlittler induced a pop out from Riley Adams and watched Rice throw out Josh Bell trying to steal second.

Two more reached in the sixth, and Schlittler used a curveball to strike out Luis García Jr. before Bell bounced into a double play.

In his past three starts and 17 ²/₃ innings, Schlittler has allowed one run on seven hits, putting himself not just in the conversation for postseason starts but for a Game 2 or Game 3 honor.