Yankees' Will Warren takes ownership of poor outing
Yankees starting pitcher Will Warren throws to the plate during the second inning of a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday in Los Angeles. Credit: AP/Mark J. Terrill
LOS ANGELES — There will be stops and starts for any young starter trying to make his way in the big leagues.
Saturday night was a stop for Will Warren. Big time.
The second-year pitcher, who had been among the Yankees’ best starters the last few weeks — in a rotation full of pitchers throwing well — had his proverbial head handed to him by the Dodgers in an 18-2 loss at Dodger Stadium.
Warren allowed a leadoff single by Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers were off and running, tagging the righthander for four runs in the first inning and three more in a six-run second.
Aaron Boone removed Warren after Max Muncy’s three-run homer made it 7-0 with one out in the second. Warren allowed a season-high seven runs and six hits. His four walks matched his season high.
“It’s no fun going through that when you have a day like this,” Boone said, “but it’s part of the game sometimes and you’ve got to wear it.”
And Warren, who was making only his 17th big-league start, did wear it. Publicly.
Even though he clearly was shell-shocked in addressing the media afterward, Warren still displayed some of the self-confidence that inside the Yankees’ organization has prompted comparisons to Michael King.
King, who has developed into one of the premier starters in the National League with the Padres, had his share of duds in the early going when called upon to start for the Yankees.
“They’re good,” Warren said of the Dodgers, “but at the end of the day, I think if we execute and I attack in the zone and get ahead, I think we have success. That didn’t happen Saturday.”
That was a very King-like comment after some of his rough outings early in his career. So was this from Warren when it came to putting the outing behind him: “I’m going to let it soak in. It hurts. It sucks. I let the team down.”
Warren, who was in front of his locker waiting to answer questions as soon as the media was allowed into the clubhouse after the game, had been on a roll going into Saturday.
After starting the season 1-2 with a 5.65 ERA through seven starts, Warren went 2-0 with a 2.05 ERA in his next four.
His sweeper and curveball, two pitches Warren spent much of spring training working on, helped him strike out 33 in 22 innings in that quartet of starts.
Earlier this season, Boone called Warren “unflappable” on the mound, something scouts noted about the pitcher — an eighth-round pick of the Yankees in 2021 — during his development in the minor leagues.
“His competitiveness,” one American League scout said in spring training 2024 of what most stood out about Warren, whom he had consistently seen in the minors. “Nothing fazes him. Doesn’t get rattled, even when things are going to hell.”
Warren, though experiencing exactly that at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night, did not show it. Frustrated, yes, but no looks of exasperation on the mound, no shoulders slumped.
“Let it sit there and learn to hate that feeling,” Warren said of his emotions after that kind of outing. “And then when you take the mound in five days, you don’t want to feel that again, and it’s on to the next one.”
Said Boone: “I think the one thing he’s shown early in his big-league career is he has learned a lot from every situation, from adversity through some success. It’s a hard game and you’re going to take your lumps sometimes and we’ll be better for having gone through that and grow from that. He has all the equipment to move right through this and be excellent like he’s been much of the season.”
Notes & quotes: Before Sunday night’s series finale in Los Angeles, Boone said Jazz Chisholm Jr., who played a third rehab game earlier in the day with Double-A Somerset, has come through his rehab assignment well and could be activated from the injured list this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday when the Yankees start a three-game series against the Guardians in the Bronx. Chisholm has been on the IL since May 2 with a right oblique strain . . . Fernando Cruz (right shoulder inflammation) said he felt “amazing” after throwing a live batting practice session on Saturday. Boone said the expectation is that the righty reliever will be activated on Tuesday, the first day he is eligible to come off the IL.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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