New York Yankees starter Will Warren is still trying to find his stride at the major league level, but he’s trending in the right direction.
On Tuesday night on the road against the Guardians, the 26-year-old righty held Cleveland to just two earned runs on three hits while striking out five across five innings.
Despite a 3-2 loss on the night, Yankee manager Aaron Boone emphasized how impressed he was with the young starter’s performance.
“I thought he threw the ball so well,” he said after the game. “Really encouraging outing for him. Life to the heater, putting it where he wanted to. He was getting ahead, looked really aggressive, was on the attack, and was pitching with confidence. That’s what he’s capable of right there, so it’s good to see him have an outing like that.”
While it wasn’t enough for a quality start, Warren looked like a Cy Young candidate compared to the last time he stepped on the mound. On April 17 against the Tampa Bay Rays, the right-hander was yanked before he could escape the second inning; he surrendered just one earned run on four hits with a strikeout, but two costly walks racked up his pitch count to 53 by the time his night was done.
But Warren needed just 78 pitches to coast through five scoreless frames on Tuesday. After the game, he spoke with reporters about his approach of attacking hitters early and pounding the zone to ensure he could pitch deeper into the contest.
“I think that’s been a thing since spring training that we’ve hammered down on,” Warren said about staying aggressive. “Especially after last week, coming out before [I] really wanted to. Obviously, getting behind and the pitch count going up influenced that. Tonight, I was being aggressive in the zone and trusting the guys behind [me].”
Especially impressive was the right-hander’s ability to thwart a tough Cleveland offense comprising solely left-handed bats – five pure lefties and four switch-hitters. After the game, he recalled a conversation with Marcus Stroman, in which he told his fellow starter that the version of himself from two years ago would be proud of how the night went, since “lefties used to be my kryptonite.”
“Now I feel like I have the confidence to go up there with whoever they put in the lineup,” he added.
Warren returned to the mound in the bottom of the sixth inning with a 2-0 lead, thanks to a Ben Rice solo shot to lead off the game and a Jazz Chisholm Jr. sacrifice fly in the previous frame. He surrendered back-to-back singles to Steven Kwan and Nolan Jones, which signaled a call to the bullpen and ended his night.
Both runs came around to score off righty reliever Mark Leiter Jr., tying the contest before Angel Martinez singled home the go-ahead run a few batters later.
After the game, Boone was asked if the fateful sixth inning had him second-guessing his decision to keep Warren on the mound for as long as he did. His answer was an emphatic “no.”
“Not with a [2-0 lead],” Boone said. “I was going to give him until [Jose] Ramirez there if he was clean. I don’t want to get in the habit of, every time, racing to the bullpen when a guy’s dealing like that.”
Aside from Rice’s sixth homer of the year and Chisholm’s sac-fly, the Yankees didn’t provide Warren with any run support. In true Aaron Judge fashion, the Yankee captain, who went 4-for-4 with a double and a stolen base, was upset that he wasn’t able to knock in any runs to help out his pitcher.
“[Warren] comes out here against a tough team that we’ve seen in the postseason and had some big battles with so to see him come out there and do that is pretty impressive,” Judge said after the game. “That’s why we have to close that game out for him.”
Through his first five starts in 2025, Warren’s ERA is down to 4.79 with 21 strikeouts and a 1.26 WHIP in 20.2 innings. His five starts – and sole relief appearance – last season yielded a 10.32 ERA across 22.2 frames.
