BOSTON — Jarren Duran spoke with Ceddanne Rafaela after his Red Sox teammate lined out to right fielder Cody Bellinger in the ninth inning Saturday.

“I was just talking to him, man,” Duran said. “He’s been a huge impact player on this team. I just want him to trust himself and keep putting those quality at-bats together.”

Rafaela had another tough game offensively in the Red Sox’ 5-3 loss to the Yankees here at Fenway Park.

The 24-year-old swung and missed at three pitches outside the strike zone with two runners in scoring position and one out in the second inning. He also struck out on a ball in the dirt with two runners on base and one out in the sixth inning.

Rafaela is batting .188 with a .241 on-base percentage, .276 slugging percentage and .517 OPS in 51 games (195 plate appearances) during the second half. He’s 4-for-34 (.118) in September.

“I know he gets frustrated (at) himself,” Duran said. “I see a lot of myself in him. I used to beat myself up, even though I put a quality at-bat together. So I love to see him build on those quality at-bats. That’s baseball. You hit a hard line drive, sometimes you get out. But I feel like the more he keeps stacking those, then he’s going to start to get hot again.”

The Sox went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base. Despite 10 hits, they scored just two runs

“Things are going to fall our way eventually,” Duran said. “We just got to trust the process.”

With Saturday’s loss, the Red Sox are only two games ahead of the Texas Rangers, the first team out of the AL wild-card standings.

Boston has lost two in a row to the Yankees, dropping to five-and-a-half games behind first-place Toronto and two-and-a-half games behind second-place New York in the AL East standings.

“We ran into them when we were hot and we beat them, and they’re running into us when they’re hot,” Duran said about the Yankees. “It’s baseball, man. It’s back and forth like crazy. So I think we’re just going to keep stepping and keep moving forward here.”

Duran came off the bench Saturday to hit the first pinch-hit home run of his career, cutting the deficit to 4-3 in the eighth.

“I had a pretty good process going in there, just keep an eye on who they’re gonna bring,” Duran said. “I’ve learned from the best. Rob (Refsnyder) really helped me out earlier on in my career when I was coming off the bench and doing stuff like that. And I was just able to kind of get back to it today and have a good process and put a good swing on the ball.”