Gerrit Cole had the magic words to convince Aaron Boone to leave him in the game during a mound visit in the seventh inning Friday night.
But that is just about where his sorcery ran out.
With the tying run on first and no outs, Cole remained in the game to face Max Muncy and on his season-high 103rd pitch of the night, left a slider over the heart of the plate that ended up in the second deck in right field.
Muncy’s two-run shot off Cole flipped the game and dealt the Yankees a crushing 2-1 loss to the Dodgers in front of a sold-out crowd of 46,450 in The Bronx, snapping the four-game winning streak with which they finished the first half.
The Yankees (54-43), continuing life without Aaron Judge for the foreseeable future after his reimaging during the All-Star break did not show enough healing to allow him to start baseball activities, could not provide enough run support to make Cole’s only mistake of the night sting less.
They mustered just one run against Roki Sasaki and the Dodgers bullpen, coming in the fourth inning when Jasson Domínguez scored on a passed ball.
They had a chance to tie it in the eighth inning, but Trent Grisham was thrown out at the plate trying to score from first base on Ben Rice’s double with an aggressive send from third-base coach Luis Rojas.
Grisham did not immediately bust it from first base, which came back to cost him as the Dodgers (62-36) made a strong relay from center fielder Andy Pages to shortstop Mookie Betts to catcher Dalton Rushing.
With the Red Sox sweeping a doubleheader against the Rays on Friday, the Yankees had a chance to pick up a game and a half in the division, but settled for just a half-game, now trailing the Rays by 2.5 games for first place.
Cole had been dominant for six shutout innings before issuing his first walk of the night to Betts to lead off the seventh.
Boone had lefty Brent Headrick and righty Fernando Cruz ready in the bullpen, but after a brief chat with Cole on the mound, decided to leave him in against the left-handed hitting Muncy.
Cole quickly got ahead 0-2 and then threw a slider that may have clipped the top corner of the zone, but was called a ball and Austin Wells did not use the Yankees’ remaining challenge.
Three pitches later, another slider caught too much of the plate and Muncy clobbered it 416 feet to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 Dodgers lead.
In the Dodgers’ first trip to Yankee Stadium since winning the World Series here in 2024 — Cole, of course, was on the mound for the fateful Game 5 in his last start before undergoing Tommy John surgery — they threw three lefty relievers after Sasaki lit up the radar gun for 5 ²/₃ innings.
This was not the first time this season Cole has talked his way into staying in a game.
He had done it earlier this month, too, convincing Boone to let him pitch a fifth inning after an hour-long rain delay earlier in the game.
That one worked out, helping the Yankees snap a seven-game losing streak.
Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing in the eighth inning. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST
This one did not.
The Yankees drew first blood in the bottom of the fourth inning, all thanks to Domínguez.
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With two outs, he laced a 106.6 mph double to the gap and took third on the play as center fielder Pages bobbled the ball on the warning track.
On the next pitch, Sasaki threw a forkball that got past Rushing, the passed ball allowing Domínguez to race home for the 1-0 lead.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
