Marcus Stroman threw one meatball from which his team couldn’t fully recover.
The righty served up a three-run home run to Jake Burger in the third inning, and the Yankees could only take a bite out of the deficit in a 5-2 loss to the Marlins in front of 36,295 in The Bronx on a chilly Wednesday night.
The Yankees had a chance to steal the game in the bottom of the ninth, when Jon Berti reached on an infield single and Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto walked, giving Aaron Judge a shot.
But Judge flew out on a night the Yankees went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
The Yankees couldn’t finish off a series sweep and fell for just a third time in 13 games this season.
A 4-2 homestand is finished, and they begin a trip through Cleveland and Toronto on Friday.
Stroman entered play with 12 innings pitched and zero earned runs allowed this year. His bid at a spotless season was disrupted with a 33-pitch third inning that nearly ended his night early.
Miami’s Nick Gordon worked a 10-pitch walk before Nick Fortes hit a slow bouncer to the right side, an area that Gleyber Torres had abandoned because Gordon had taken off to swipe second base.
The ball squirted through to the outfield, and Luis Arraez followed with an RBI single for the first earned run Stroman allowed in pinstripes.
But the second, third and fourth runs came two pitches later, when Burger chomped a middle-of-the-plate slider into the Marlins’ bullpen in left-center. Stroman bounced back, but his team couldn’t.
The Yankees finished with just six hits and wasted several of the opportunities they did generate.
Aaron Boone’s club had chances in the fourth and fifth innings, when they put a pair of runners on in each.
But Judge grounded out in the fourth, and Alex Verdugo struck out before Berti grounded out in the fifth.
The Yankees scored once in the eighth, when Soto’s double drove in Volpe to make it 4-2, but that was as close as they came.
They put two runners on base before Anthony Rizzo popped up and Torres struck out.
The Marlins tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the inning, when Rizzo couldn’t dig out a throw that Volpe bounced, enabling Tim Anderson to score.
The Yankees’ first run came in the sixth inning, when Giancarlo Stanton smacked a no-doubt, 393-foot shot to right off Bryan Hoeing.
It was Stanton’s fourth homer of the season and his first against the Marlins, with whom he starred from 2010-17.
Stanton has now gone deep against every team in baseball.
The most fight on the team might have been shown by Boone himself.
The manager was tossed in the bottom of the seventh for arguing a strike called on Verdugo.
Home-plate umpire John Bacon called a pitch that appeared outside and low a strike, pushing the count to 1-2 in an at-bat in which Verdugo eventually would strike out, and Boone’s chirping knocked him out for the first time this season.
Boone was kicked out an AL-leading seven times last year.
For those looking for positives, Stroman lacked command and his best stuff yet still navigated his way through five innings while striking out seven.
After the troublesome third, Stroman faced the minimum in the fourth and fifth innings (thanks to a double-play ball from Josh Bell).
On a night that could have been worse, the Yankees did not have to empty their bullpen and got quality work from Luke Weaver, Victor Gonzalez and Dennis Santana.
