At its root, Tuesday night came down to 15 pitches.

It came down to the 15 extra that Red Sox manager Alex Cora let Garrett Crochet throw in a 117-pitch outing and the 15 that Max Fried (102) didn’t.

It came down to the 15 that Luke Weaver tossed instead — and the two runs he allowed — after Yankees manager Aaron Boone turned to his bullpen in the seventh inning.

There are plenty of other variables and layers to the gut-wrenching 3-1 loss in Game 1 of the wild-card series Tuesday night in The Bronx that put the Yankees on the brink of elimination.