A sweep would have been less painful — and perhaps less embarrassing.
The Yankees looked poised to send this World Series back to Los Angeles before a horrifying fifth inning derailed their season, which ended with a 7-6 loss in Game 5 on Wednesday night.
The Yankees jumped on the Dodgers early with back-to-back home runs by Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm that staked Cole to an early 3-0 lead.
That lead swelled to 5-0 by the fifth inning when the Yankees had an inning that they will rue all offseason.
The Yankees allowed the Dodgers to score five runs sparked by errors by Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe and a miscommunication between Cole and Anthony Rizzo.
The Yankees were able to retake the lead in the sixth inning on a sacrifice fly by Giancarlo Stanton.
But the Dodgers fought back in the eighth with two sac flies of their own by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts — with a catcher’s interference call against Austin Wells with Shohei Ohtani at the plate in between.
Walker Buehler got his first big-league save with a scoreless ninth inning.