PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Somewhat quietly, Will Warren is nearing the end of a strong spring.
If he can carry over that success into the regular season, it probably will not stay as quiet.
In his penultimate start of the Grapefruit League schedule, Warren looked sharp again, giving up one run over four-plus innings while striking out four to lower his ERA to 1.77 through five starts.
“Will’s kind of the non-talked-about guy, I feel like, in our rotation,” manager Aaron Boone said before the 3-2 win over the Rays at Charlotte Sports Park. “He looks great. Obviously he threw the ball well for us last year, but it feels like another notch to me.”
Each of the last two springs, at this point on the calendar, Warren still did not know whether he was going to be starting the season in the big league rotation.
And while his spot this year is secured at least to start the season, coming off a 33-start year in 2025, Warren has kept the same approach like he is fighting for a job while making adjustments to get better.
That has included moving to the third-base side of the rubber, which has given him better angles to attack both righties and lefties, and starting to use the PitchCom on his belt to call some pitches.
“Sometimes I want to make sure that I get a pitch thrown in that count without hesitation, especially with the [pitch] clock, so I’ll call it,” said Warren, who plans to use it in the regular season as well. “Sometimes I send in two [pitch calls], J.C. [Escarra] gives me one back and sometimes I just let him do his thing because I trust him back there.”
The end goal is to have confidence and conviction in what he is throwing, which Warren indicated is the biggest difference for him now versus the end of last season.
“Just going up there and throwing my stuff over the plate,” he said. “This whole spring, [the goal has been] being as efficient as possible. Max Fried’s made a great career out of that and he’s going to keep doing it. So trying to pitch like that.”
Though Gerrit Cole is set to make his spring debut Wednesday, Carlos Rodón will not appear in a Grapefruit League game before the Yankees break camp.
The left-hander, returning from October elbow surgery to shave down a bone spur and remove loose bodies, is scheduled to throw another live batting practice Thursday — while Fried and Ryan Weathers start the two split-squad games that day — building up to two innings and 35 pitches.
But by the time he pitches again in five days, the Yankees will be in Arizona playing a final exhibition against the Cubs before Opening Day.
Still, Rodón remains on track to only miss a few weeks if everything goes well.
“I would expect him back at some point in April,” Boone said.
Boone did not want to touch whether David Bednar would be available to pitch for Team USA in Tuesday’s WBC final, but it did not sound as if that would be the case.
The Yankees closer would have been pitching for the third time in five days, and had already racked up some high-stress innings with 68 pitches across three outings from March 10-15, all of which Boone acknowledged.
Yerry De los Santos has not pitched in 10 days as he tended to a family situation, but he returned to camp Tuesday. … The Yankees reassigned RHP Bradley Hanner to minor league camp. They now have 49 players left in big league camp.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
