Here was something rare: legitimate, hard contact against Will Warren. Leody Taveras smoked a fastball that bore across the plate and sent it right back up the middle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the end of his delivery, Warren was facing first base. By the time Taveras\u2019 101.5 mph grounded dart blitzed its way to the mound, Warren was facing second.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just stood there and hoped it missed me, and it didn\u2019t,\u201d said Warren, who was blinded to the ball, raised his left foot and knocked it down with the bottom of the cleat, then scrambled to record the final out of the top of the second.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Warren is smothering batted balls, opposing lineups and perhaps questions about his status in the rotation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The young right-hander was brilliant again, allowing one earned run while pitching into the seventh inning, and strengthened his case that he belongs among the Yankees starting pitchers as his club sailed, 7-2, over the Orioles in front of 41,239 in The Bronx on Friday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou say he\u2019s the guy we haven\u2019t talked about,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said with a smile about an overlooked part of a starry rotation. \u201cThe body of work, just from jump in spring training, has just been excellent over and over again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Warren throws a pitch during the Yankees\u2019 May 1 win against the Orioles. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n
The Yankees (21-11) have the AL\u2019s best record and have won 11 of 13, playing well in every phase of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ben Rice clubbed home run No. 11, a three-run shot in the second that drained much of the drama from the proceedings. Jos\u00e9 Caballero remained hot with a homer of his own \u2014 hours after it became clear his play at least temporarily has kept Anthony Volpe in the minors \u2014 and RBI knocks from Cody Bellinger, Amed Rosario and Aaron Judge (who reached base in four of five plate appearances) kept the offense buzzing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fernando Cruz relieved Warren in the seventh and inherited a second-and-third, one-out jam and allowed just a run on a swinging bunt. Camilo Doval and Jake Bird threw scoreless frames for a bullpen that has generally been solid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Will Warren throws a pitch during the Yankees\u2019 May 1 win. Robert Sabo for the NY Post<\/p>\n
Ben Rice connects on a home run during the Yankees\u2019 May 1 win. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s defense, particularly from Caballero and Judge, was strong. But the Yankees have had no greater strength this season than their rotation, which sports a majors-best 2.70 ERA and is not close to full strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carlos Rod\u00f3n will pitch Tuesday in what could be his final rehab start. Gerrit Cole will be making his fourth minor league start Tuesday, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Spots will have to be cleared in a rotation that already has demoted Luis Gil, has given a shot to Elmer Rodr\u00edguez and also includes Ryan Weathers, who owns a 3.21 ERA through six starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The competition is on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going to have the best staff in all of baseball when they come back,\u201d said Warren, who has not allowed more than two earned runs in any of his seven starts. \u201cAnd so the best pitchers are going to pitch the majority of the games. Gotta make sure that I keep going out there and doing my job.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
He did Friday, limiting the Orioles to two runs (one earned) on three hits and one walk in 6 \u00b9\/\u2083 innings in which he struck out nine, slicing his ERA to 2.39 \u2014 which is an ace-like number but ranks third (behind Cam Schlittler\u2019s 1.51 and Max Fried\u2019s 2.09) on the Yankees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old allowed a second-inning home run to Pete Alonso and then retired 16 of the next 17 batters he faced, silencing the Orioles through various means on a night he focused more on off-speed and breaking pitches than fastballs. He has the stuff to make hitters look silly, Baltimore\u2019s Coby Mayo nowhere close as he meekly swung at a sweeper that swept far away from him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge (99) hits an RBI single driving home New York Yankees catcher Austin Wells (28) in the eighth inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium, Friday, May 1, 2026. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
He did not have to rely upon chasing, though, and routinely challenged Baltimore hitters who looked overmatched. Gunnar Henderson stared at a perfectly placed strike-three sinker and walked back to the dugout without an argument.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His changeup, a weapon especially against lefty hitters, might have been the strongest it has been all season. The Orioles swung four times at the pitch and missed three.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Yankees third baseman Ryan McMahon (19) is greeted by New York Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt (48) after the final out of the ninth inning. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Warren did not look like a pitcher who belongs in a bullpen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not satisfied,\u201d Boone said of a righty who made a leap last season and appears to be doing it again. \u201cFor all the good he did last year, I don\u2019t think he was satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here was something rare: legitimate, hard contact against Will Warren. Leody Taveras smoked a fastball that bore across…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":767432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1276,58813,1266,405,403,2228,5226,5225,5228,5227,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,8475],"class_list":["post-767431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-ben-rice","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-will-warren"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116503126476377875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}