ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees’ latest summer swoon has reached a familiar stage: the pitchforks coming out for Aaron Boone.

And though much of the fan outrage lately has been centered around Boone — which may have been tempered at least for a night on Wednesday, as the Yankees beat the Rays 2-1 to win for the seventh time in their last 24 games — general manager Brian Cashman offered him a vote of confidence before the series began on Tuesday.

“Obviously he works extremely hard,” Cashman said after making the trip to Tropicana Field because of the team’s struggles. “He’s very well-connected with these guys. He’s charged every day with pushing the right buttons the best he can with what he’s got. I think he’s navigating that as well as he possibly can. 

“It was a tidal wave of success here for the first two months and then here, as we closed out June and entered July, we’ve hit a really rough patch for an extended period of time. Ultimately it all comes together with what our current record is, but we gotta be playing better than we currently are right now as an entire unit.”

The Yankees had the best record in baseball on June 14 at 50-22.

Since then, they are 6-16, which is the majors’ worst record during that span. In that time, the Yankees have gone from holding a 3 ¹/₂ -game lead atop the AL East to trailing the Orioles by two games.

They finished Wednesday as the top AL wild card but with the Twins (2 ¹/₂ games back), Red Sox (4 ¹/₂ games back) and Royals (five games back) suddenly nipping at their heels.

The Astros also have begun to turn things around and the defending World Series champion Rangers are lurking and getting hot as they try to decide whether or not to sell at the trade deadline.

Boone, who is in the final year of his contract, took responsibility Tuesday night when asked what he could do as manager to help the Yankees snap out of their prolonged funk.

“It starts with me,” Boone said. “I filter in through the coaches and it’s about us trying to get these guys prepared the best we can, setting a tone with how we present ourselves. But it’s on us as coaches to put our players in the best position possible to go out there and be successful.

“We got to continue to try to do that to the best of our ability and trust that the ball’s going to start to bounce our way a little bit and we can get it rolling here. It starts on that bump and we gotta keep at it.”

Though the Yankees’ struggles of the last three-plus weeks may have slightly loosened what not long ago seemed like a surefire grip on a playoff spot, they still ended Wednesday with the majors’ fourth-best record.

As of Wednesday morning, FanGraphs had their playoff odds at 97.1 percent while Baseball Reference had them with a 96.6 percent chance of getting in.

“Acknowledging the last three, four weeks have been brutal — we know we’re better than that, and everyone’s a little bit frustrated,” Boone said before Wednesday’s win. “But the other reality of the situation is we’ve put ourselves in a good spot here however many games into it. We’ve set ourselves up to achieve all our hopes and dreams in the season.

“We know we got to turn it around. We know we got to play better. But certainly acknowledge what we’re going through, but also keep that big picture in mind.

“We gotta play better and finish off innings, finish off games and hopefully get this thing turned around.”