With time slipping away, Yankees must clock Sox

You know what it’s going to look like, right? You know what it’s going to sound like, and feel like, what it’s going to be like. After seven straight days in which each Alex Rodriguez at-bat was treated like a referendum on good and bad, right and wrong, sound and fury, terror and pity … well, this is going to be easy.

No need to find an impartial jury to determine if the cheers will outpace the boos, or if the boos will win 60-40, 70-30, 57.3-42.7 …

We can settle this now: Assuming there are a few thousand Yankees fans who squeeze their way into Fenway Park tonight — and that those fans are split down the middle on whether they’re delighted to have A-Rod back in pinstripes (or road grays, as the case may be) or disgusted at the sight of him — let’s say that a good 96 percent of everything A-Rod does will be met with boos tonight, tomorrow and Sunday: strikeouts, pop outs, doubles off The Wall, bombs into the Monster Seats. Also: walking, breathing, blinking.

That’s the easy part.

And also, at this point of the season, an absolutely, utterly inconsequential part.

This is what matters now: the sand of the Yankees’ season slipping though the hourglass — and a little bit more rapidly after yesterday’s dyspeptic, distasteful 8-4 loss to the Angels. It goes against everything we know about baseball to attach angst to one game, especially since the Yankees had already clinched a four-game series win against Anaheim, and a winning homestand when you add last weekend’s series with the Tigers.

But that’s the predicament the Yankees find themselves in now. They don’t only have to win, they have to win in torrents, in buckets, in bunches, in clumps, in clusters. It isn’t enough to win two out of three or three out of four; they need 17 out of 20, 24 out of 30. Last year’s AL wild-card teams, Baltimore and Texas, both won 93 games; for the Yankees to get there, they need to go 31-11 the rest of the way.

Starting tonight. Starting in Boston, at Fenway Park, where the locals will be looking for the Olde Towne Team to hammer their ancient enemies this weekend, to not only end for good any faint notion of 1978 and a divisional comeback but to further bury them in the wild-card chase, too.

“I think we’re playing better and we’re swinging the bats better,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said yesterday. “But every series is really important for us now, and there’s not a lot of room for error. We need to win every series.

“I think our guys look forward to this. Baseball is about meaningful games. And these are very meaningful.”

Actually, meaningful games surround the Yankees now, and that’s both a blessing and a curse because it isn’t just about the Yankees themselves now, they also must rely on the kindness of strangers. Wednesday was a perfect snapshot of what the Yankees face: A very good day thanks to a total butchering of the normally stingy Jered Weaver was kept from being a spectacular day when the Rangers, Rays and Indians — all teams the Yankees are chasing — rallied to overcome two-, three- and four-run deficits, preventing the Yankees from gaining as much ground as they could have.

So they will arrive in Boston tonight, and they will look far different to the Red Sox than the taped-together version of themselves that played the first nine games these teams played against each other this season. They come with a mission, and a purpose, and if the Sox aren’t yet in plain sight of them, they are within the telescopic lens.

And, hey: On Aug. 16, 1978, the Yankees awoke to find themselves seven games behind the Red Sox in the loss column, knowing the clock was ticking on that season, too. And on Aug. 16, 2013, that number is: 7, even with far more yesterdays in the season than tomorrows. Of course, we know that when these teams play, you don’t only throw out the records, but the seasons.

And history tells us anything is possible. Forty-two games to go? Time is running short. Just not out. Not yet.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com