Gerrit Cole gave Yankees what they needed in ace’s World Series return

LOS ANGELES — Gerrit Cole left the game with the lead and in line for the win on Friday night.

But his Yankee World Series debut didn’t go as planned after he left. While Clay Holmes stranded Cole’s runner in the seventh, the Dodgers tied the Yankees in the bottom of the eighth to cost Cole a win.

For the most part, Cole did what he usually does in a 6-3, 10-inning Game 1 loss at Dodger Stadium.

After being inconsistent in two of his three postseason starts this year, the right-hander allowed one run in six-plus innings and didn’t walk a batter in the 88-pitch outing.

He whiffed only four, but retired 11 straight batters after Freddie Freeman’s two-out triple in the bottom of the first.

“I felt pretty good,’’ Cole said. “I thought I made a lot of really good pitches. It was nice to come out crisp and give us a chance to win. [The loss] hurts, but it’s one game.”

Aaron Boone said he “thought [Cole] got a little bit taxed” toward the end of his outing.

“The last probably 20, 30 pitches, I thought he kind of grinded a little bit,’’ Boone said.

And Cole also provided some length, which the Yankees hope they can use to their advantage over the Dodgers makeshift rotation during the series.

On Friday, though, right-hander Jack Flaherty pitched 5 ¹/₃ innings before Dave Roberts left him in to face Giancarlo Stanton, whose two-run homer gave the Yankees the lead.

Cole survived a scare from Shohei Ohtani to lead off the bottom of the first. Ohtani hammered a ball to center, where Aaron Judge made the catch.

And Cole stranded Freeman at third later in the inning when Teoscar Hernandez’s liner was snared by Anthony Volpe at short.

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But he mostly cruised through the second, third and fourth innings before Kiké Hernandez tripled to right.

And this time, Cole wasn’t able to get out of it, as Will Smith followed with a sacrifice fly to center for the only run allowed by the Yankees ace.

Boone went to Holmes with one on and no one out in the seventh and Holmes barely got out of the inning unscathed.

It was Cole’s first World Series start since 2019, when he was with the Astros and limited the Nationals to one run in seven innings in Game 5 in a series Washington — and Soto — won.