The Yankees made no significant lineup or personnel changes after they alarmingly were swept in Boston over the weekend, but Aaron Boone didn’t mince words as his fourth-place team returned to The Bronx to face two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and the Angels.

Boone bluntly stated multiple times that the Yankees’ “season is on the line” entering the four-game set that began Monday against the Halos at the Stadium.

“We’ve had too many ups and downs, we’re in too good of a division to have those ups and downs obviously continue,” Boone said via Zoom before the series opener. “We can’t afford to play great for two weeks and struggle for a week. Not if we’re going to make up ground.

“We’ve dug ourselves a little bit of a hole in the division, obviously. The good news is we are still in complete control of the script. But I don’t think there’s any question moving forward that night in and night out, our season is on the line.”

Boone put the Yankees through infield practice and spring-training style PFP drills (pitchers’ fielding practice) ahead of Monday’s batting practice, following a sloppy weekend at Fenway that was culminated by a 9-2 loss Sunday with ace Gerrit Cole on the mound to complete the three-game sweep.

“We do it just about every homestand. We’ve done it probably the last three or four homestands. It’s something that we try to do,” Boone said. “I feel like when we think of sloppiness, you think about the defensive side understandably, or baserunning. But I feel like a large portion of the season and I think one of the things that actually fueled our turnaround in the month of May when we really started playing better, we weren’t really hitting … but one of the things that fueled the turnaround with our pitching was our defense.

“We had tightened things up quite a bit. I still feel like that’s been better. We’ve had our one-off games here that kind of derailed that narrative a little bit, but overall I do feel like we’ve made a lot of strides defensively. And a lot’s been talked about the baserunning and the mistakes we’ve made on the bases, but I do feel like over the last few weeks that is getting a little bit better, but it needs to continue to improve.”

Boone noted that even though the Yankees are “not a base-stealing or a fast team and by and large station-to-station” — beginning the day last in MLB with 16 steals — baserunning “is an area we certainly need to clean up and need to continue to get better at.”

The Yankees entered this homestand with a 40-37 overall record, 6 ½ games behind Boston in the AL East. Boone said the organization continues to discuss potential changes, but has remained patient with the hope the team will rediscover the consistency that led to a 13-5 run in mid-May

“Win or lose [Monday], we have to come with that same mindset the next day and the next day. Hopefully we find that consistency that I know is in there,” Boone said. “I think there is a level of patience that we all have because of the faith we have in our group and each other.

“But also we’re a team that expects to be really good. We’re a team that expects to compete for a championship. We’re getting to the middle of the season. There’s a lot of calendar that’s gone off the clock already. I don’t think we’ll ever really be accused of not being patient enough. We’re trying to make solid evaluations, make honest evaluations, coupled with the patience that I think we’ve shown and the belief that we have in the guys in that room to do something special. I certainly believe that’s absolutely still in there.”