CLEVELAND — With his team having lost five of six entering Sunday’s game, Aaron Boone removed one of the Yankees’ hottest hitters from the lineup.

Didi Gregorius went 4-for-8 with a homer and two RBIs Friday and Saturday in the first two games back from the IL where he started the season recovering from last October’s Tommy John surgery on the right (throwing) elbow.

Since the Yankees scored six runs in the previous two games — losses to the Indians — Boone said it was difficult removing the shortstop from the lineup of the team’s eventual 7-6 win in 10 innings.

“I had this conversation the first day [Friday] here, we are going to build this thing up slowly but surely and I think he understands that,’’ said Boone, who started Gleyber Torres at short. “But knowing the kind of gamer he is and obviously how he has looked the first two games, certainly a little bit difficult but with the off day [Wednesday] coming up he will play a couple of days and then an off day. Then we start to build him up more and more. I think it’s a wise progression considering where he is coming from.’’

Boone put Gregorius in the game in the ninth inning with a one-run lead and watched him commit a fielding error that allowed the Indians to tie the score.

A byproduct of that move was Torres going from short to second, DJ LeMahieu moving from second to first and Luke Voit going out of the game.

Subbing for Voit defensively is something Boone might do more of now that he has a full complement of infielders.

“That’s certainly a possibility. Obviously, it depends what we go with on a given day, it depends how much we are staying away from someone or if we want him to have a day off,’’ Boone said. “[Gregorius] is so good out there I am always going to want him on the field when we have a lead late.”