BOSTON — Aaron Judge finished second in the MVP race last year, and Luis Severino was third for the Cy Young.

Through the All-Star Game, if anything, they were better this season. They had added further refinement to their natural gifts. Judge did not fall into slumps quite as frequently, his knowledge and confidence showing in more consistent excellence. Severino’s mound presence improved and so did his changeup.

There are many reasons for the Yankees’ slide from AL East contention to simply fighting to retain the first wild-card spot — perhaps any wild-card spot.

But as big as anything is the injury absence of Judge and the three steps back Severino has taken over the last month.

No crying in baseball. No excuses. The Mets, for example, have played so much of the last two seasons without Yoenis Cespedes and Noah Syndergaard, without the depth of the Yankees roster to overcome the loss of a hitter and starter of that caliber.

Plus, the Yankees added Giancarlo Stanton to a team that reached ALCS Game 7 last year, and he is as close to a Judge clone as is available. Plus, the Red Sox all but eliminated the Yankees from the AL East race on a weekend when Brian Johnson had to start the opener in place of Cy Young front-runner Chris Sale.

Nevertheless, these games against the Red Sox have accentuated how vital Judge and Severino are to the Yankees not only reaching the playoffs, but doing something in them.

Judge brings patience, in part, because of what one scout who covers the Yankees said, “[He] is the fear factor. The pitcher is aware he better work carefully with [Judge] because they know how quickly he can change a game.”

Boston starters Rick Porcello on Friday and Nathan Eovaldi on Saturday buzzed through 17 innings on just a combined 179 pitches. Judge is the kind of hitter who would have at least given some pause to the strike-throwing aggressiveness. He would have been comfortable going deep into a count and making two starters who did not work hard at all work much harder against a Yankee team that had lost five of its first eight games missed by Judge.

“He’s one of the best hitters in the big leagues, obviously,” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “He’s a big bat that they’re missing. But they’ve got some capable guys over there. Obviously, we don’t walk many people, intentionally either. … He’s a power threat. It’s a little bit different, but at the same time, we still have to attack them.”

Neither Judge (wrist) nor Gary Sanchez (groin) is due back before the end of August at the earliest. So the Yankees must figure out how to do damage without them. Then can Sanchez mentally and physically dismiss what has been a rough season and appreciate that if he has a big September and October, that is all that will matter to make 2018 valuable?

As for Judge, he was hitting .329 with a .964 OPS in July before being struck by Kansas City’s Jakob Junis. Can he rediscover that swing success following not just an absence, but an absence caused by a wrist injury?

As for Severino, both he and the Yanks insist there is no injury. So is this a dead arm or him tipping pitches or a regression? In his last five starts, he had an 8.28 ERA and a 1.070 OPS against and has too much resembled the 2016 failure who had to be pulled from the rotation and demoted to the minors.

Severino is the most important 2018 Yankee, owing to how wide the gap is between the No. 1 starter and the rest of the rotation, and how valuable he was in saving bullpen innings for others who needed them more. (He went from averaging 6 ²/₃ innings to five in his downturn.)

The Yanks were 16-2 in his first 18 starts and just 2-3 in his last five, with three straight losses.

Both Aaron Boone and pitching coach Larry Rothschild offered encouragement that after a three-run first Friday at Fenway, Severino’s fastball had better location and life than in recent starts. Still, he struck out just two. That could reflect Boston’s excellence at limiting swings and misses. But Severino’s strikeout high this season was 11, reached twice, once against the Red Sox in just six innings on May 8.

The Yankees survived the actual wild-card game last October with the worst version of Severino (three runs in one-third of an inning against Minnesota). They are going to have difficulty just getting there if he — and Judge — do not return to healthy, vintage form.