CLEVELAND — Luis Severino and Corey Kluber shared the mound at Progressive Field on Thursday night, which set off the hype machine for two of the best pitchers in baseball to deliver epic pitching performances before becoming AL teammates Tuesday night at the All-Star Game.

“But it didn’t go that way,’’ Severino said with a smile belonging to the winning team after the Yankees overcame a pedestrian outing by their ace to hang a 7-4 loss on Kluber and the Indians in front of 31,267.

It sure didn’t.

Severino lasted five innings, in which he gave up four runs and nine hits including two home runs. Most alarming was he fanned a season-low one batter.

Kluber, who entered the game with a 5-1 record and 1.80 ERA in seven career regular-season games against the Yankees (though he was punished by them in two ALCS tilts last October), worked into the eighth, but absorbed the loss and fell to 12-5. He gave up six runs and eight hits in 7 ¹/₃ innings.

“Two aces going against good lineups, that’s fun baseball,’’ said Greg Bird, who doubled home Giancarlo Stanton in the fourth and brought Aaron Hicks home in the eighth with a sacrifice fly.

Having split four games in three days with the dreadful Orioles, the Yankees had their hands full with Kluber, and when Severino gave up two runs in the first frame, the deficit looked larger.

“At that point it seemed they were beating us up pretty good,’’ manager Aaron Boone said.

The first of two Brett Gardner home runs tied the score in the third and Didi Gregorius’ homer and Bird’s RBI double gave the Yankees a 4-3 lead. Jose Ramirez’s solo homer in the fifth tied the score.

With Gregorius running from first and one out in the eighth, he scored easily on Hicks’ double to center. Bird, who has 10 RBIs in the past three games, added a second run with the sacrifice fly. Gardner made it 7-4 by drilling a home run off lefty reliever Tyler Olson that collided with the right-field foul pole.

“That was a big win for us,’’ said Gardner, who has seven multi-home run games in his career. “The two best right-handed pitchers in the AL and neither had their best stuff.’’

With Kluber and Severino gone the advantage quickly went to the Yankees’ bullpen, and Adam Warren, David Robertson, Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman combined for four scoreless innings. Chapman, who hadn’t pitched since Saturday in Toronto, when he left the game with a left knee issue, worked a perfect ninth for his 25th save.

As for Severino, he pointed to the one strikeout and the quality of at-bats the Indians put on him. When Severino was asked if he might have been tipping pitches he said he would check with the video.

“Not very good,’’ Severino said of his second straight five-and-fly outing. “They are a very good team and they made me grind. I struck out one batter today. I am not that guy.’’

The victory enabled the Yankees to remain 3 ½ games back of the AL East-leading Red Sox who have won 10 straight. It also gave the Yankees five wins in the first eight games of an 11-game, 10-day road trip that has three more tilts remaining against the Indians before the All-Star break.

“That was a great win. We were up against a great pitcher on a night when Sevy didn’t have his best stuff,’’ Boone said. “But the rest of the guys came up in a big way.’’