Mike Celizic

It’s time for the Red Sox to throw out all the familiar plot lines. This season is no longer about beating the Yankees. It’s not about winning the AL East. It’s not about curses or Evil Empires or blood feuds.

When you’re 7 1/2 games behind with 39 to play, none of that stuff matters anymore. All that counts now is figuring out a way to make the playoffs.

The season has taken a nasty turn for Boston, who not so long ago looked like a mortal lock to play deep into October. After losing two of three to the Yankees, it’s the wild card or nothing.

The Red Sox will tell you the division is still within their grasp, because that’s what they have to say and how they have to think. As we know, anything is possible. The Yankees could get Mets Syndrome and collapse like a Ponzi scheme. The Red Sox could win 15 straight and blow past everybody. Wall Street executives could refuse to accept their bonuses.

But while we’re waiting for all these things to come to pass, Boston would be advised to stop looking ahead at the Yankees, who are about to disappear over the horizon. Better to take a look over their shoulders at the Rangers and the Rays, who are just one and three games behind respectively in the AL wild card race.

We’re starting to run out of season. The Red Sox have just the 39 games left. That’s enough to allow for a lot of possibilities, but not enough to allow for much error.

Boston knows that. Yankee and Red Sox fans may have looked at this series as some sort of test, but the players knew that it was just a three-game set that they really had to win. Even the premier matchup of Josh Beckett and CC Sabathia took a back seat to the Boston imperative to win games, no matter who the opponent is.

That’s what made this weekend exercise in offensive excess so damaging. The insult of losing two of three to the Yankees is outweighed by losing two of three, period.

Boston is still in a rough stretch of schedule. No sooner had the Yankees cleared the runway on their way home than the White Sox touched down. In the next few weeks, Boston has to play Chicago, which is battling Detroit for the AL Central title, seven times. They also have six more against the Rays, three against the Angels and three more against New York. That’s 19 games against contending teams.

The Red Sox have to think about winning series now. If it’s three games, they have to win two. If it’s four, they need three. Anything less, and this year that started so magnificently is going to end like every year used to end back when people still believed there was such a thing as a Curse of the Bambino.

Everybody else has their own challenges. The Yankees still have to go back to the West Coast, where they never thrive, to play three against Seattle and three more against the Angels. Texas has 19 games against the Angels, Mariners, Rays and Twins. Tampa has six against Boston, seven against the Yankees, four against the Tigers and three against the Rangers.

But no team can rely on any opponent not named the Mets taking themselves out of the equation. The season has officially entered its stretch run, and there’s no such thing as a meaningless game anymore. You can write off bad losses or three-game losing streaks in April, May and June, but not in late August and September.

That’s what hurts about dumping two of three to the Yankees. It isn’t losing to the dreaded Pinstripes that hurts. It’s getting hammered at home in two of the three games. It’s watching their ace, Josh Beckett, set it up on tee for Yankee hitters who took him deep five times in Sunday’s loss. It’s not finding a way to win a series that the Red Sox simply had to win.

There have been too many series like that during the season’s second half. There can’t be any more.

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