Where are the Oakland A’s when you need them?

The Yankees got back to reality on Thursday night after sweeping the lowly A’s, when they were manhandled by the first-place Rays, 8-2.

It came after the Yankees also dropped two of three at Tampa Bay last week, and they only avoided their second shutout of the season with a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth, as they fell to 21-18 and back to nine games behind Tampa Bay (30-9), which became the first team since the 1984 Tigers to win 30 of its first 39 games.

Domingo German was solid against the Rays for a second straight start, but the Yankee offense, which beat up Oakland’s laughably bad pitching for three games, couldn’t figure out Tampa Bay right-hander Drew Rasmussen.

The Yankees came into the game having scored double figures in each of their previous two games and seven or more in four straight before Rasmussen shut them down for seven innings.

German cruised through the first four innings before Anthony Rizzo booted a routine grounder by Josh Lowe with one out in the fifth.

Francisco Mejia followed by popping out to third, but Yandy Diaz made the Yankees pay for Rizzo’s miscue with a double down the left-field line that scored Lowe from first.

Rasmussen allowed just a pair of singles to Jake Bauers and has developed into a Yankee killer. He has thrown 21 scoreless innings against the Yankees in four appearances — three starts — with 26 strikeouts.

And the 27-year-old was very efficient on Thursday, needing just 76 pitches to get through seven innings.

German was pulled after walking Taylor Walls with two outs in the sixth — having thrown 87 pitches — and Ron Marinaccio entered and gave up a single to Luke Raley and hit Manuel Margot to load the bases for Josh Lowe, who hit a bases-clearing double to right-center to make it 4-0.

Albert Abreu gave up an RBI double to Taylor Walls in the seventh and Ryan Weber was hit hard in the eighth.

The Yankees loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and Gleyber Torres singled in the two runs.

The loss left the Yankees unable to get back to a season-high five games over .500.