Mr. November had a major issue with a move Aaron Boone made in late October.
Boone pulled Gerrit Cole in the seventh inning, having given up just four hits and one run on 88 pitches, after the starter gave up a leadoff single to Teoscar Hernandez.
Speaking on Fox’s World Series postgame show, Jeter shredded the decision.
“Look, I know we talk about this all the time and I don’t want to be one of those guys who says, ‘Back in the day when we played …’ but we were talking about how when we played the Mets in 2000 Al Leiter pitched Game 6 and threw 140-something pitches,” Jeter began.
“Gerrit Cole was dominating this game. He was dominating the game! And if you take him out after 88 pitches for I don’t know what reason, it’s a domino effect on not only this game tonight, [but] tomorrow’s game and the rest of the series. I just think when you have someone who’s dealing like Gerrit Cole was dealing tonight, you leave him out there as long as you can.”
Jeter and Boone were teammates on the Yankees in 2003, the year Boone hit a walkoff home run to beat the Red Sox in Game 7 of the ALCS.
The immediate “domino effect” that Jeter is referring to is that the Yankees ran out of pitchers.
From the seventh through the ninth innings, the Yankees burned Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver.
The game went to extra innings and with a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 10th, Boone brought in Jake Cousins.
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With the Dodgers having first and second with one out, Boone then turned to Nestor Cortes for the high leverage situation to face the powerful trio of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
Cortes ultimately gave up a walk-off grand slam to Freeman as the Dodgers won 6-3.
After the game, Boone told reporters that he “thought [Cole] got a little bit taxed” near the end of his performance.
“The last probably 20, 30 pitches, I thought he kind of grinded a little bit,’’ Boone said.
