The Yankees were playing an eighth game in seven days. There is a transaction just about every day that adds another relief arm, either from the scrap heap or from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Two starting pitchers — who both pitched in Saturday’s doubleheader — are attempting to stretch out from injuries at the major league level and do not have their full allotment of pitches. The few trustworthy bullpen arms are exhausted.
“Quite honestly,” manager Aaron Boone said, “going in [to the game], you’re like: I don’t know how we’re getting to the finish line today.”
The answer: Will Warren carrying the team and the staff on his right arm.
The ostensible No. 5 starter performed like he was one of the aces. Warren pitched into the eighth inning in a 16-1 demolition of the Red Sox on Sunday in The Bronx, where Warren responded to both the team’s need and his own struggles.
Warren — whose ERA had risen from 3.45 to 4.39 over his previous 11 games, a span dating to June 26 in which he had allowed 32 earned runs in 48 ²/₃ innings (5.92) — looked like his excellent April self.
In what was the biggest start of his season, given the staff’s predicament and given a tiebreaker was at stake against the blood-rival Red Sox, Warren turned in “probably his best performance of the year,” Boone said.
The final line — seven-plus innings in which he allowed one earned run on six hits and a walk with seven strikeouts — does not do full justice. Given the state of the bullpen, Boone pushed Warren as far as he could go, including two additional batters in the eighth inning (a double and RBI single) that prevented a Yankees shutout.
“I knew we were short [in the bullpen], but I think every week I just go out there and try to get as many outs as possible,” said Warren, whose club is now 17-9 in games he starts. “So that was my goal today was just — no matter what happens, just keep getting outs.”
The outing was particularly impressive considering how it started. He got into trouble in the first inning, allowing two of the first three batters he faced to reach, in the kind of ominous opening that could have left the Yankees on the other side of such a lopsided score.
But with Roman Anthony on second and Wilyer Abreu on first, Warren threw a sweeper that Willson Contreras chased for the second out.
In a full count with Adley Rutschman, Warren dotted the bottom of the zone with another sweeper and strutted off the field.
“I thought he was going to swing. He didn’t,” Warren said. “I was just trying to get back in the zone and make a good pitch and went from there.”
From there — actually, from the walk to Abreu — Warren retired 13 straight batters until Trevor Story reached with an infield single in the fifth.
If nothing else, Warren looked like an arm who should continue to take down regular-season innings and can see postseason innings in some form.
“I thought he was fantastic,” Boone said.
