Warren Shuts Down Athletics as Yankees Blank A’s 3-0

One of the best things you can possibly see from a pitcher is when they battle through to put in a good outing without their best stuff. The Yankees got one of those outings from rookie starter Will Warren tonight.

In the first inning, it seemed like Warren might not have the longest outing of his career, as he walked the bases loaded and got into deep counts against the other batters he faced. Despite cracking the 30+ pitch mark just in that inning alone, he ended up getting out of it without the Athletics on the board, and Warren only grew into the game from there.

As Warren ended up getting back on track, he battled his way through five innings. That set a platform for the Yankees’ offense to take the lead and for the bullpen to dominate after the Yankees’ starter left. In total, the Yanks held the A’s to just three hits for the game, and New York took the series opener in the Bronx, 3-0.

Warren started the game by throwing 36 pitches in the first as he worked himself into and out of trouble. After doing that, he settled down for the next couple innings, and the Yankees’ offense got him some runs.

In the second, Jazz Chisholm Jr. got the Yankees on the board with a solo homer.

An inning later, Cody Bellinger made the A’s pay for intentionally walking Aaron Judge to get to him, hitting an RBI single to score another run. The Yankees made it a hat trick of innings with a run in the fourth. Following a catcher’s interference with Paul Goldschmidt at the plate and walks to Ben Rice and Anthony Volpe, DJ LeMahieu hit a hard grounder back up the middle. A’s pitcher Mitch Spence tried to barehand it and did get a piece, but only deflected it to safety, allowing another run to score.

Despite the high pitch count in the first inning, Warren successful grinded through five, having cracked triple digits with his final pitch of the fifth. While he walked four batters, he allowed no runs and just two hits, striking out seven for the day. It was a really nice job from Warren to battle as long as he did when he quite evidently didn’t have pinpoint control.

After that, it was bullpen time, needing to combined to get 12 outs. Tim Hill replaced Warren for the sixth and allowed one hit in a scoreless inning. Fernando Cruz got the seventh and kept things going with a 1-2-3 frame. Luke Weaver was called on for the eighth, and he threw another perfect innings to get the Yankees to the ninth.

The Yankees’ offense hardly had a sparkling day themselves, despite the three runs early in the game. They had a chance for some insurance in the eighth, after Bellinger picked up another single and Goldschmidt was later intentionally walked. However, they couldn’t push those guys across the plate ahead of the ninth inning.

Devin Williams was brought in for the ninth, and he continued the bullpen’s nice day. An easy 1-2-3 inning confirmed the Yankees’ victory, a save for him, and the shutout. They also defended first place, as the Rays entered the day just a half-game behind in the AL East. With Tampa Bay in Baltimore, the Yankees at least guaranteed that the Rays would remain in second on Saturday, with the chance to put a full game between them if the O’s could take care of business.

The Yankees and Athletics will continue their series in the Bronx tomorrow afternoon at 1:05 pm ET. Former teammates Clarke Schmidt and JP Sears are set to be the pitchers in the matchup.

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