ARLINGTON, Texas — After recovering from Tuesday’s bitter loss, the Yankees found themselves in a familiar position: rethinking the role of the closer.

With three and a half weeks left in the regular season, the ninth inning is still a problem after Clay Holmes blew his league-leading 11th save in a brutal 7-4 loss to the Rangers that knocked the Yankees out of first place in the AL East.

Aaron Boone again gave the Yankees the option to “consider everything,” citing the options they have at the back end of the bullpen. He responded similarly after Holmes blew his 10th save in the Little League Classic on Aug. 18, but then used Holmes for the next three save opportunities before Tuesday, converting them cleanly each time.

The reality is that if the team had a clear solution to replace Holmes—after only signing two additional relievers at the trade deadline—they likely would have implemented it already.

“We’ll talk about it and do what we think is best,” Boone said Tuesday night.

Holmes started pitching for the second straight day on Tuesday, so he’s unlikely to be used again on Wednesday if a save opportunity arises, regardless of what the Yankees decide about his role.

The Yankees may owe it to the team to give Holmes a breather and try someone else to close out the games before October rolls around. But who?

The three main candidates would be Tommy Kahnle, Luke Weaver and Jake Cousins. Of that group, only Cousins ​​has recorded a save this season (last month against the White Sox on a night when Holmes was unavailable), although Kahnle has recorded seven saves in his 10-year career.

Cousins ​​has perhaps the most closer stuff of the group, with a wipeout slider that generates plenty of bad swings. He entered Wednesday with a 2.73 ERA, 45 strikeouts and 14 walks in 33 innings this season, despite allowing at least one run in each of his last three games — including the eighth inning on Tuesday, when he didn’t get much help from his defense.

Kahnle entered Wednesday with a 2.00 ERA, 38 strikeouts and 16 walks in 36 innings. He has lost some of his fastball — which opponents have a .320 batting average against — but has relied primarily on his changeup to get outs, though it remains to be seen how a changeup-heavy approach would work in the ninth inning. There are successful closers who rely primarily on a pitch, but often it’s a triple-digit fastball or a biting slider, not a changeup (especially one without much threat of a fastball to play it off).

Weaver, on the other hand, is a converted starter who has carved out a major role in the bullpen this season and has pitched well, with a 3.33 ERA, 79 strikeouts and 23 walks in 73 innings. But he has never had a save opportunity at the major league level, with most of his appearances this season coming in the seventh and eighth innings.

One potential wild card outside of that group is Luis Gil, but the Yankees appear to be keeping him as a starter for now — because if he’s good, he could be one of their best options to start a playoff game. The right-hander is scheduled to come off the injured list and face the Cubs on Friday. And while Gil’s move to the bullpen would solve the Yankees’ rotation problem — and, more importantly, give them a relief weapon with overwhelming potential — it may not be realistic to ask him to pitch multiple times a week (not to mention consecutive days) after being on a starter’s schedule all season and nearly his entire career.

Another late-inning option, Ian Hamilton, could return to the Yankees this weekend if he can survive a rehab session on Wednesday or Thursday.

He recorded two saves last season (one of them over three innings), but was not as healthy this year before landing on the injured list in June with a latissimus strain.