It was the inning from hell and it helped end the Yankees season.
The top of the fifth inning in Game 5 of the World Series started with the Yankees up 5-0 and Gerrit Cole tossing a no-hitter.
It ended with the game tied and what had been a party at Yankee Stadium beginning to feel like a funeral, which ended up being for the Yankees in a brutal 7-6 loss.
Here’s a look at what went right, and then very wrong as the Yankees went from the verge of booking a trip to Los Angeles for Game 6 to failing to keep their season alive.
Kiké Hernandez led off the inning with the Dodgers’ first hit of the night, a single to right, and The Bronx faithful gave Cole a quiet cheer for his four no-hit innings.
That’s when things got weird.
Aaron Judge, who made a spectacular running catch to rob Freddie Freeman of an extra-base hit — and perhaps an RBI — in the fourth, simply dropped a routine fly ball by Tommy Edman.
Hernandez had gone back to first base, but reversed course and raced to second in time to beat Judge’s throw.
It was Judge’s first error of the year, either in the regular season or the playoffs.
With runners on first and second, Austin Wells paid Cole a visit on the mound.
Will Smith sent a grounder to shortstop. Anthony Volpe went to his right and fielded it, but bounced a rushed throw to third and Jazz Chisholm Jr. couldn’t come up with it, so Edman was safe at third and the bases were loaded with no one out.
That’s when Cole put his ace hat on and looked to restore order to the inning.
He whiffed Gavin Lux for the first out, finishing off the second baseman with a 99.4 mph fastball, his fastest pitch of the season, according to Statcast.
Cole followed by striking out Shohei Ohtani, who clearly looked hampered by the shoulder injury he suffered on a slide into second base in Game 2.
Just an out away from an incredible escape, Cole still had to get through Mookie Betts.
And that’s when the inning took another ugly turn for the Yankees.
Betts squibbed a grounder to first and Anthony Rizzo, never the fastest of players, didn’t charge the slow chopper.
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Worse, Cole — who initially started moving to cover first base — stopped and just pointed at the bag, thinking Rizzo could get there in time.
But a hustling Betts easily beat Rizzo to the base. The infield hit made it 5-1, as Edman scored.
Instead of the inning being over and the Yankees up by five runs, World Series home run machine Freddie Freeman became the seventh batter to the plate and drilled a two-run single to center.
Suddenly, it was 5-3 and Cole and the Yankees were teetering toward disaster.
But wait, it gets worse.
Teoscar Hernandez then came up and blasted a two-run double off the wall in center, a 404-foot shot that tied the game at 5-5.
What had seemed almost impossible to imagine as the fifth inning got underway was now a reality.
Still, Cole remained on the mound as Tommy Kahnle — who would eventually blow the game for good in the eighth — began to get loose in the bullpen.
Cole walked Max Muncy to extend the inning before finally getting Kiké Hernandez — batting for the second time in the inning — to ground to short.
In the end, Cole had thrown 38 pitches in the frame after needing just 49 pitches to get through the first four innings.
Just as importantly, the Yankees were staggered.
