The words were jarring, and Tampa Bay’s Brandon Lowe made sure to repeat them, calling the Yankees a “last-place team,” both in an on-field interview following a heated game between the two AL East rivals headed in two different directions, and again in the clubhouse in another postgame interview.

Lowe, in his sixth season with the Rays, has never seen the Yankees miss the playoffs and neither has anyone else since 2016.

But the Yankees haven’t finished in the cellar since 1990, when they ended up seventh in what was then a seven-team division.

It was the second of four-straight losing seasons in The Bronx — and the worst of the bunch, as the Yankees lost 95 games, the most by the franchise since 1912.