In what might have been the most dramatic day of the Yankees’ season, they lost plenty.

Two pitchers were subtracted, for disparate reasons. Their best player’s integrity was questioned. A game became a shouting match, and then a lead was lost, too.

An otherwise disastrous day did not end in a defeat, though. Aaron Judge wouldn’t allow it.

The Yankees superstar did not need any wayward glances to bail out his team from a brutal day in Toronto, crushing a monstrous, 448-foot home run to center to break an eighth-inning tie in a 6-3 win Tuesday over a Blue Jays squad that is becoming a bigger rival by the day.

Of course it was Judge who put the Yankees in front, infuriating the Blue Jays with his bat a night after his eye so angered them.

The hours leading up to the game were all about Judge, whose eyes had strayed for a split-second ahead of a home run in Monday’s win.

Judge claimed he looked toward a “chirping” Yankees dugout, saying his teammates were yelling toward the home-plate umpire, which is an explanation that strains credulity.

The Blue Jays appear to believe Judge was looking toward the dugout or first-base coach Travis Chapman, who could have been relaying a tell about what pitch was coming — a perfectly legal tactic, if true.

An opposing team seizing upon the tell of a pitcher tipping his pitches has long been an accepted part of the game. (The Astros crossed a line and cheated by using technology and cameras in their trashcan-banging scheme.)

The word “cheat” was thrown around plenty Tuesday, and Judge acknowledged he had “some choice words” for Sportsnet broadcasters Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez, who spotted Judge’s sideways glance and insinuated something was amiss.

Such was the backdrop to a face-off that had the Blue Jays on edge from the onset. The Blue Jays dugout clashed with Yankees third-base coach Luis Rojas, yelling that he had strayed from the third-base coaching box. After Monday’s events, they did not want a Yankees base coach to have a better angle toward the catcher and thus objected to perfectly normal positioning by Rojas.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone answered in the fourth inning, when he yelled about Blue Jays third-base coach Luis Rivera leaving the chalked box and prompting the umpiring crew to prod Rivera to return to the box.

The Yankees surely did not appreciate their integrity — and their captain’s — being questioned. But the day’s worst developments occurred with their pitching staff.

After three perfect innings, Domingo German returned for the fourth inning and never reached the mound.

Crew chief James Hoye and the same umpiring crew that notably inspected German’s hand during an April 15 start intercepted the Yankees starter for a substance check. Hoye later would tell a pool reporter German’s hand was the “stickiest I’ve ever felt” — there’s residue of last month’s Max Scherzer ejection in that phrasing — and that German’s hand had a substance that was “definitely not rosin.”

In a game the Yankees led, 3-0, German was tossed.

German said he was only using rosin, and added a patch of brown discoloration on his pants was from chewing tobacco. His defense ultimately does not matter, and he must miss 10 games in a suspension.

The Yankees will be without his initial replacement for at least a short while, too. Ian Hamilton, who emerged from out of nowhere to become a major piece of the Yankees’ bullpen, recorded two outs before hurting his groin. The righty was sent back to New York for tests.

The Yankees, down two pitchers, suddenly were in danger of being down in the game, too. A 3-0 lead in the fifth inning evaporated when Ron Marinaccio allowed four straight two-out hits, the last an RBI single from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that tied the game.

But with the Yankees teetering, it was a steely-eyed Judge who snapped the tie in the eighth inning. He only stared at righty Erik Swanson, whose middle-of-the-plate slider was demolished to dead center and appeared to break the maple leaf on a WestJet Flight logo, which might have been symbolic.

Try to sully Judge’s reputation? He might break you.

There was surely too much drama for the Yankees’ liking and not enough German or Hamilton.

But an otherwise dreary day became a night to remember because Judge doesn’t need advanced notice to destroy other teams’ wills.

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How you feel about the Mets’ offensive misery is probably directly tied to how you felt about last year’s offensive mastery.

Last year, when the Mets passed the baton to the next hitter and relied on a persistent attack rather than an explosive one, was their performance more lucky or good?

This year, when the Mets have mostly failed to cash in their chances, have they been more unfortunate or bad?

Here is the startling commonality between the Mets’ 2022 awesome offense and their 2023 awful offense: They shared the same expected batting average (.252) entering Tuesday’s 8-5 loss to the Rays, in which Justin Verlander was knocked around in his first start as a Met at Citi Field.

Was last year’s offense lucky? Probably. The Mets finished the season with a .259 average.

Is this year’s offense unlucky? Probably. Their .241 average entering Tuesday’s action was a full 11 points below the expected mark.

The two offenses — which consist of mostly the same parts, give or take a Francisco Alvarez and a Brett Baty — are similar in just about every way apart from results.

The 2022 Mets had the fifth-best offense in baseball (4.77 runs per game), but were a bit below average in power — MLB clubs averaged 174 home runs, and the Mets hit 171. They stacked hits together because they rarely struck out (third-fewest), found holes (second-best batting average) and hit well in the clutch (sixth-best OPS with runners in scoring position).

Last year’s edition created plenty of opportunities and capitalized on them often.

The 2023 Mets have largely the same lineup, albeit a year older, and a far different bottom line: 4.16 runs per game, which is eighth-worst in MLB.

The Mets still are not striking out: They have tallied the third-fewest strikeouts in baseball. The home runs have dipped, but not tremendously: The average team has swatted 49, and the Mets have knocked 44. The Mets have batted just .234 with runners in scoring position, eighth-worst in the game.

These are the challenges that face a team that does not rely upon the home run. Other clubs often change games with one swing; the Mets need three or four good swings to swing a result.

“It’s hard to win that way in today’s game,” Brandon Nimmo said Monday of a club that went 56 straight innings without a home run before Baty drilled one Tuesday.

Is the 2023 Mets attack — which is hitting the ball slightly harder than last year’s unit, per Statcast figures — dreadful or due?

If the offense continues to struggle scoring runs, GM Billy Eppler will have to answer that question and decide whether to do nothing and wait for the results to turn, or whether to:

Bring up Mark Vientos.

The slugging top prospect has been eliminating holes from his offensive game at Triple-A Syracuse, where his numbers are ridiculous. The 23-year-old has a 1.104 OPS through 38 games in which he has crushed 13 home runs, 11 doubles and, perhaps most importantly, significantly cut down his whiffs.

Vientos struck out in 28.6 percent of his Triple-A plate appearances last year, a problem that continued when he debuted in the big leagues late in the season. This year, he’s down to 20.5 percent strikeouts.

The suspect corner infielder was brought up last year to mash lefties primarily as a DH. This year, he actually has hit righties better (with 11 of his 13 homers against like-sided pitching).

The hole he continues to work on is his defensive ability: He’s splitting time between first and third base. Neither spot is open at the big-league level.

Bring up Ronny Mauricio.

The 22-year-old’s numbers are similarly absurd (1.005 OPS) and similarly encouraging: His 23.1 percent strikeout rate last season at Double-A Binghamton has shrunk to 16.9 percent with Syracuse.

It is easier to find a spot for Mauricio, who has a better glove and good speed. The lifelong shortstop has moved to second base and, with a call-up, could push Jeff McNeil to left field, which would take playing time from Tommy Pham and Mark Canha.

If either top prospect gets the call soon, Eppler would have to decide whether to…

Cut bait with veterans.

Canha’s results have begun to show up, and he plays a solid outfield. Even at 34, he is a valuable piece.

Pham is hitting just .188, but the Mets are so convinced his luck will turn that he batted cleanup Monday — when he blasted a 110-mph groundout, 101.6-mph fly out and 99.4-mph sacrifice fly. As a righty-hitting DH, Vientos looms as a threat, but Pham’s at-bats have been strong.

Luis Guillorme (.590 OPS) has lacked the magical bat he wielded last season, and serves as the most likely roster casualty if Mauricio were summoned. Guillorme still can be optioned, so the Mets can send the flexible infielder with a great glove to Triple-A without losing him. Since Baty has been installed as the third baseman, Guillorme’s skill set has become redundant with Eduardo Escobar’s.

Escobar’s overall numbers are poor, but he has begun to figure out how to be a part-time player. Playing mostly against lefties, Escobar is 9-for-21 (.429) in his past nine games. If the Mets decide it is Mauricio’s time, they would be choosing between Escobar’s bat and Guillorme’s glove.

These are not easy choices because the numbers and eye test show the Mets’ offense should be playing better. Eppler will have to decide when should no longer matters.

Did the Spurs really need more sports karma after one bad season in the mid-1990s landed them Tim Duncan and set up a five-ring generation of winning? Probably not.

Do basketball neutrals benefit from having 7-foot-4 French wunderkind Victor Wembanyama set up for success with a well-run organization and Hall of Fame coach after the Spurs won Tuesday night’s NBA draft lottery? Probably yes.

The Spurs entered the lottery with a 14 percent chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick in June’s NBA Draft and lucked into the rights to a generational prospect in Wembanyama.

How did the rest of the lottery shake out?

Let’s take a peek via the top-14 mock draft published Tuesday night by The Post’s Zach Braziller:

1. Spurs — Victor Wembanyama, forward, Metropolitan 92
   2. Hornets — Brandon Miller, forward, Alabama
   3. Trail Blazers — Scoot Henderson, guard, G League Ignite
   4. Rockets — Amen Thompson, forward, Overtime Elite
   5. Pistons — Cam Whitmore, forward, Villanova
   6. Magic — Ausar Thompson, forward, Overtime Elite
   7. Pacers — Jarace Walker, forward, Houston
   8. Wizards — Gradey Dick, forward, Kansas
   9. Jazz — Anthony Black, guard, Arkansas
   10. Mavericks — Cason Wallace, guard, Kentucky

Check out Zach’s mock for all of his lottery projections, and read our Sports+ feature for more on the Thompson twins and Overtime Elite.

— Jonathan Lehman

If there is any consolation for Steve Nash and Jacque Vaughn, who briefly coached at least two superstars in Brooklyn, it is that those superstars’ next coaches didn’t have much better luck.

As recently as February 2022, the Nets fielded maybe the most talented team in NBA history. That talent is now gone and not exactly thriving in their new locales.

James Harden was the first to go, and, 15 months later, his next coach has been fired. The 76ers got rid of Doc Rivers after his team took a 3-2, second-round series lead on the Celtics, only to fold in Games 6 and 7.

Kyrie Irving was the next to leave, and though Mavericks coach Jason Kidd still has a job, the team does not know if it will keep Irving. The Mavericks first stunk and then tanked with Irving and Luka Doncic paired together, missing the postseason altogether in a disastrous ending to the February trade that Irving demanded.

Losing essentially intentionally bought Mark Cuban & Co. the No. 10 pick in the draft — at the Knicks’ expense — in Tuesday night’s lottery.

Harden and Irving abandoned Kevin Durant, who then asked for his way out, too. The Nets shipped Durant to the Suns, who — after bowing out in six games to the Nuggets in the second round — fired head coach Monty Williams.

It is hard to coach in the NBA without superstars, and it can be very hard to coach in the NBA with superstars.