Yankees' Will Warren seems to have found himself

DENVER — Will Warren made the Yankees' rotation out of spring training for one reason: he was needed. That's because of Gerrit Cole's season-ending injury,  reigning AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil's serious  (though not season-ending) injury and the right shoulder fatigue that had Clarke Schmidt on the shelf for the season’s first two weeks.

Warren didn’t exactly seize the opportunity in the early going. Though occasionally flashing the kind of stuff that made him one of the organization’s top pitching prospects, he struggled going deep into games, primarily because of a failure to consistently command his five-pitch arsenal. He had a 5.65 ERA through his first seven starts, averaging a tick over four innings in those starts.

But the righthander, who will start Sunday’s series finale against the Rockies, seemed to discover something in start No. 8 on May 9 against the Athletics in Sacramento. Suddenly he has the look of a young pitcher in the beginning stages of finding his way as a starter.

That night in Sacramento, Warren took a shutout into the eighth inning of a career-best 7 1/3 innings, allowing one run (Mark Leiter Jr. allowed an inherited runner to score), four hits and a walk. He struck out seven.

It was the beginning of a three-start stretch in which Warren, 25, has gone 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA, striking out 26 and walking three in 18 innings.

“I had been telling you all [the media] for a while I felt close,” Warren said before Saturday's 13-1 victory over the Rockies. “And I was confident in that part. It was more about putting it all together.”

He said one of his issues when struggling was allowing too many baserunners from the bottom of the order. When some of those hitters would get on, he’d get hurt by the top of the order.

“The first five hitters are usually the best hitters in a lineup,” Warren said before smiling. “I feel like our lineup is one of the exceptions and maybe the Dodgers. But not that I lost focus at the bottom of the order, I think it’s more like [mentally saying], ‘All right, I should handle these guys.’ I let my guard down a little bit.”

Warren said recent conversations with closer Luke Weaver, who spent most of his career as a starter before finding his niche as a reliever with the Yankees, helped crystallize that approach.

“We talked about some stuff he does, and I started trying it and it allows me to stay pitch-to-pitch,” Warren said. “We talk about that a lot as pitchers, not to get ahead of yourself.”

Cruz latest

Righty reliever Fernando Cruz, who was placed on the injured list earlier in the week with right shoulder inflammation but said he didn’t believe he would be out long, is on this three-city trip and played catch on flat ground before Saturday’s game.

“It went well,” Aaron Boone said. “That was a good sign. I know there was pretty good intensity to it . . . As the week unfolds, hopefully we get him back on the mound [for a bullpen session] sometime when we’re in California.”

After this three-game series against the Rockies, the Yankees have a three-game series starting Monday night in Anaheim  before a World Series rematch with the Dodgers next weekend in Los Angeles.

Extra bases

Boone said righthander Jake Cousins, who started the season on the IL with a right flexor strain and whose rehab from that was halted a week ago when he felt pectoral discomfort after a live batting practice session, threw a 30-pitch-plus bullpen session Friday at the Stadium. “Went well by all accounts,” Boone said. “Hopefully now we’re back to getting close to [starting] that rehab assignment.” . . . Marcus Stroman, out since April 12 with left knee inflammation, also is on the trip and threw a bullpen session Saturday. There is no timeline for his return.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

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.