The Yankees started Saturday by celebrating one of the highest points in franchise history.

Then they took another step toward the organization’s lowest point in recent memory.

With members of the 1998 Yankees on hand to be honored for the 25th anniversary of their 114-win championship season on Old-Timers’ Day, the 2023 club got one game closer to becoming the franchise’s first in more than three decades to finish below .500.

The Yankees lost 9-2 to the Brewers in a game that featured a 2:34 rain delay, a Little League home run by Milwaukee’s Willy Adames and a complete implosion late.

The go-ahead home run, however, at least cleared the fence.

Tyrone Taylor ripped a 1-0 fastball from Jonathan Loaisiga into the left field seats to lead off the eighth inning.

The homer barely cleared the wall and put the Brewers ahead, 3-2.

From there, Loaisiga and the Yankees quickly came apart.

Sal Frelick and William Contreras both singled, then a pair of bloops from Carlos Santana and Mark Canha fell into shallow center field, allowing another run to score.

Victor Caratini’s sacrifice fly, on another ball that nearly dropped due to an outfield miscommunication, brought home the inning’s third run.

The ninth inning, somehow, was even worse.

The Yankees gave up four runs, Matt Krook faced five batters without getting an out, Ron Marinaccio walked two batters with the bases loaded and an air of complete resignation enveloped the Stadium.

“It’s tough,” Aaron Judge said. “We kinda got on a roll there and just hit a little slide here, but that’s baseball.

Gotta show up the next day.”

The loss put the Yankees within an inch of mathematical elimination in the AL East — a division they won last season — with 20 games remaining. Avoiding the franchise’s first last-place finish since 1990 would be another goal, of sorts, for the next few weeks.

The Brewers opened a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning when, after Canha’s single, Adames lifted a ball over the head of Giancarlo Stanton in right field. Stanton’s throw was cut off by DJ LeMahieu, but the first baseman’s relay to third went into the camera well, allowing Adames to score.

Stanton’s defense came to the fore later in the game, as he was slow to get to the series of bloop hits Milwaukee hit in the eighth and ninth innings.

“I think probably a sloppy feel there today, too,” manager Aaron Boone said. “There’s days he moves better out there and he’s usually really route efficient.”

A pair of RBI singles from Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza in the fourth inning, which tied the score at two, ended up accounting for nearly half of the Yankees’ hits on the day.