OUCH! Derek Jeter reacts after fouling a ball off his foot during the Yankees’ 3-2 ALDS win over the Orioles last night at the Stadium. Jeter left the game after the eighth inning. (Getty Images)
With a limping Derek Jeter pulled from last night’s game, major questions have emerged about the shortstop’s health.
In the first inning of the Yankees’ pulsating 3-2, 12-inning ALDS Game 3 win, Jeter fouled a ball off his left foot, the same foot on which he suffered a late-season bone bruise that affected his playing time. Jeter was hobbling during the game, an alarming development. Even more alarming, Joe Girardi lifted him for defense before the ninth inning.
Jeter admitted to having an X-ray, but would not reveal the results. As is always the case when Jeter is hurting, he shrugged off the injury’s severity and insisted he had no doubt that he’ll play in tonight’s Game 4.
“I’ll be all right,” Jeter said. “It won’t be a big deal.”
This new injury is also being called a bone bruise, but Jeter said it’s in a different spot from the previous one.
Jeter admitted to being in pain on the field, although he actually hit well, going 2-for-4 with an RBI triple. While the triple wasn’t caught due partially to a bad route by Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones, Jeter drove the ball well. In the eighth inning, he struck out, and Girardi pulled him.
“I talked my way into the last at-bat,” said Jeter, who had never before come out of a playoff game for health reasons. “That didn’t work out too good, so he got rid of me.”
“Derek is one of the toughest players I’ve ever been around, and you know what he told me: I’m great. That’s what he always tells me,” Girardi said. “I was talking to Stevie [Donohue], our trainer, and I said, ‘He’s swinging the bat good, let’s just get his last at-bat and then I’ll take him out. Let’s just get through that at-bat.’
“He understood. He never wants to come out. He could have two legs that were broken and wouldn’t want to come out of the game.”
Girardi said he would assess Jeter today, but admitted if Jeter can play, using him as the designated hitter is an option. If Jeter is not at short, Girardi would have to play Jayson Nix — who replaced Jeter defensively last night— or Eduardo Nunez there. Nunez is a greater offensive threat, but is unreliable defensively.
mark.hale@nypost.com