ATLANTA — As their season continues to spiral, the Yankees have hit .500 on the way down.
A team that has played mediocre baseball for most of the season finally has the record to match it after a fourth straight loss sank the Yankees to 60-60 on the year.
On another night when Luis Severino put the Yankees in an early hole, they could never recover as their offense hardly showed up in a one-hit effort while falling to the Braves, 5-0, on Tuesday at Truist Field.
The Yankees are now back at .500 for the first time since May 1, when they were 15-15, and fell to 6 ½ games behind the Blue Jays for the final AL wild-card spot.
It marks the first time the Yankees have been .500 this late in a season since 1995.
Besides being at risk of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016, the Yankees could also soon be in danger of enduring their first losing season since 1992.
They have not been under .500 all season, but will try to avoid that and a sweep in the series finale on Wednesday night.
The Yankees had a miserable night all-around, recording more errors (two) than they had hits (one). Severino showed some signs of (relative) progress but still gave up five runs (three earned) over four innings.
Braves right-hander Bryce Elder entered the night with a 3.64 ERA but had a 7.94 ERA over his last six starts before Tuesday.
Still, he turned in seven dominant innings in which he allowed only four base runners (three on walks), three of which were erased by double plays.
Gleyber Torres was responsible for two of those twin killings, both coming after Aaron Judge led off an inning with a walk.
Torres has now hit into six double plays over his last six games, giving him 17 on the season, which is tied for the fourth-most in MLB.
Severino gave up a hit to the first batter he faced, Ronald Acuña Jr., and then made things worse by making an errant pickoff throw to first base allowing Acuña to take third.
But Severino retired the next two batters and had a chance to get out of the inning unscathed when he entered a full count against Matt Olson, who ended up drawing a walk.
Marcell Ozuna came up next, saw a hanging slider on the first pitch and clobbered it to center field for a three-run homer.
Severino went on to walk a batter and hit another, with the inning threatening to go off the rails before he got the third out.
Still, his ERA in the first inning this season is now 14.79.
In the second and third innings, Severino was much sharper, showing a glimpse of why the Yankees still believe he has the talent to turn things around.
He retired six of the seven batters he faced, striking out four — including two batters whiffing at 99 mph fastballs.
But the Braves came back with some more thump in the fourth inning.
After the leadoff batter reached on a costly fielding error by Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Severino retired the next two batters before Acuña belted a two-run homer to center for the 5-0 lead.