Yankees manager Aaron Boone’s call on the Game 1 starting pitcher in the ALDS versus Cleveland seemed like such a close and tough choice you could imagine him asking the two main candidates to draw straws.

Or perhaps he had the pitching possibilities — the $324 million man Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes, the team’s best pitcher in 2022 — play rock, paper, scissors.

Really, it appeared like a coin flip, which might have been method No. 3.

However, Boone decided (and it was very likely none of those three options in the age of analytics and overanalysis), he chose very wisely.

Boone ultimately opted for pedigree, class and past performance (before this year, I mean) over the statistics of the season, and went with Cole, the big-money man who came here to show he belonged on the biggest stage, and could help deliver a championship. He sure looked the part in Game 1, pitching around a couple early Yankees defensive mistakes and striking out several key hitters in a Guardians lineup best known for making contact in the Yankees’ 4-1 victory.

“I thought he did a really good job of owning the moment.” Boone said of Cole. “The few times he was backed into a corner he made some pitches.”

Boone originally named Cole as the starter on The Post podcast “The Show,” several weeks ago, but as the late-blooming upstart Cortes kept beating the odds and dominating American League lineups, it was clearly tempting to go with the hotter hand. About a week ago, Yankees people were saying Boone was still deliberating, and with Cole occasionally angst-ridden over a season-long issue of allowing too many home runs, it seemed almost a surprise when the manager stuck with Cole as the choice.

It turned out to be the correct call, as Cole limited the Guardians to four hits and a run (yes, of course it came on a home run by little leadoff man Steven Kwan) before being lifted with one out in the seventh inning. He struck out eight against the team that’s toughest to strike out in the bigs. Cole was removed to a rousing ovation, and when he passed the umpire’s sticky stuff test, he repaired to the dugout where the team’s best-paid player (for today anyway) was greeted like a hero for his first ever postseason game at Yankee Stadium, where the house was packed.

“What a wonderful feeling,” Cole said afterward. “It was just a really awesome experience overall. What a great atmosphere.”

This hasn’t been as easy postseason for aces, what with Max Scherzer (the game’s best-paid player and three-time Cy Young winner), Max Fried (the 2021 World Series hero) and Justin Verlander (another multiple Cy Young winner) all getting walloped already. Cole is recalled here for failing to get past the second inning in last season’s wild-card game at the rival Red Sox, an almost unforgivable sin in these parts.

But the reality is that Cole is a big-game pitcher, always has been, as his career 2.82 postseason ERA attests. Which is partly why the Yankees awarded him the biggest contract ever at the 2019 winter meetings in San Diego. That was a big moment for both Boone and general manager Brian Cashman, who broke open a few bottles of wine at the downtown San Diego hotel to raise a toast to the immediate improvement of their World Series odds. They seemed unnaturally happy.

Cole finished fourth and second in Cy Young voting his first two years here, achievements that seem forgotten on talk radio and elsewhere around town. He set a Yankees franchise record by striking out 257 batters this season, but it was 33 home runs that folks fixated on. And him, too at times. He spoke endlessly to reporters after an especially rough game in Milwaukee in the last few weeks of the season. There was so much anxiety over a couple more harmful home runs that day it felt like he belonged on a therapist’s couch, not at a postgame interview session.

Surely, there was reason to turn to Nasty Nestor, whose first full season in the bigs turned out to be a smooth ride. While Cole was twice a first-round draft choice (once he was No. 1 overall), he’s won as many games and struck out as many batters as anyone the last half decade and he’s finished high in Cy Young multiple times, Cortes told me that before this year his greatest honor was making All-County Miami Herald as a high schooler at Hialeah, Fla.

At one point this year Cole proclaimed Cortes was the Cy Young leader, but eventually he was passed by Verlander, Dylan Cease, Shane McClanahan, Shane Bieber and the great Shohei Ohtani. Even so, he had the better year than Cole. (For the record, I would have gone with Cortes in Game 1.)

No matter, Cole (and Boone) have put the Yankees in great shape, up 1-0 with Cortes and Cole set to pitch three of the final four games of the ALDS, if necessary. Things are set up quite nicely. Raise a toast to Boone today.