ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — So what’s up with this Yankees offense?

Baseball’s best team finds itself in a bit of a funk. The Yankees got blanked by the unimposing Rays on Saturday, 4-0 at Tropicana Field, clinching their first series loss in more than a month, and their recent struggles with the bat have provided a road map for how this group could actually register a bona fide regression:

If their pitching injuries finally catch up to them and their lineup doesn’t swing back toward its April/May form? Then we might have something interesting here.

“There’s going to be times where we really break through,” Aaron Boone said after the Yankees’ second straight loss.” But really, for a couple, few weeks now, we haven’t those big outburst games, necessarily. We’ve had big innings. When it’s been winning time, we’ve come up pretty big.”

Reality check: At 50-24, the Yankees are on pace to finish 109-53, which would tie their 1961 forefathers for the third-best record in franchise history. With an average of 5.16 runs per game, they finished their action tied with the Red Sox, entering Boston’s night game against the Mariners, for the best offense in the industry. You have to flap your wings pretty vigorously to generate any serious concern about this ultra-deep team.

Nevertheless, there does exist the reality of the Yankees very much wanting to avoid the do-or-die wild-card game. And the fact that the Sawx don’t appear to be letting up in this high-stakes, high-level pennant race. Hence, every game matters more than it would for your run-of-the-mill team on pace to go 109-53.

“It says June 23 on the clock,” Boone said, pointing to a digital clock in the Trop’s visiting manager’s office that does conveniently include the date. “We’ll worry about our house, and you do shrug it off. You think about this one. I think everyone’s irked when you come in after a loss. But we also know in a little bit here, we turn the page and lock in tomorrow, come in here with urgency and expect to get a ‘W.’ We don’t get caught up in that right now.”

Those who do get caught up in that right now would opine that most of the Yankees’ recent losses have resulted from ineptitude on the offensive side. In their past 16 games, the Yankees have posted a .227/.297/.421 slash line, quite the drop from the .257/.338/.470 they posted in their first 58 games (thanks, Baseball-Reference.com). That they nonetheless own an 11-5 record during that stretch, boosting their overall winning percentage, illustrates the many ways in which they can survive and thrive, as fill-in starting pitchers Domingo German and Jonathan Loaisiga have covered for the disabled-list trips of Masahiro Tanaka and Jordan Montgomery.

Again, though: The Red Sox persist. So it carries some meaning that the Yankees will leave town Sunday having registered their first series defeat since they dropped two of three to the Rangers in Texas from May 21-23. They went 8-0-2 in their subsequent 10 series.

The primary culprits? Brett Gardner, who owns a .622 OPS in June. Greg Bird, (.681), whose ineptitude since his return from the disabled list has all of us wondering whether the demoted Brandon Drury will get some big league time at first base soon. Gary Sanchez (.494), who got the day off Saturday and has looked better this past week, cranking a few big hits and hitting into some very loud outs.

To sharpen this discussion, though, the top problem hasn’t been any specific player, but rather a specific concept. The Yankees just aren’t hitting well enough lately with runners in scoring position. They went 1-for-8 in clutch situations Saturday against Rays starter Wilmer Font, a 28-year-old project who recorded his first big league victory, and four relievers. Over the aforementioned 16-game stretch, they are a terrible 13-for-102 (.127).

“I thought the last two nights, we’ve had some OK at-bats with runners out there where we’ve hit balls hard,” Boone said. “[Aaron Hicks] smoked that ball to center [in the second]. [Miguel] Andujar up the middle [in the second]. That’s going to happen over the course of time.”

It is. Yet if the Red Sox won’t relent, then, as absurd as it sounds, it’s about time for the Yankees to shake off this mini-slump and get their offense closer to peak level.