Warren wipes out O's with 9 K's in 3rd straight quality start

NEW YORK – Right-hander Will Warren continues to show that he wants to stay in the Yankees’ rotation. On Friday night, he threw his third consecutive quality start in a 7-2 victory over the Orioles at Yankee Stadium.

Warren was dealing throughout the game, pitching 6 1/3 innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits and striking out nine batters. The earned run came in the second inning when he allowed a homer to Pete Alonso, who hit a monster shot into the second deck in right field.

Warren is one of the reasons the Yankees currently have a stellar rotation. After Warren's outing, New York's starters have a 2.21 ERA (21 ER, 85 1/3 IP) over their past 14 games and are averaging 6 1/3 innings per start. This is all without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón, who are on the 15-day injured list with elbow injuries.

The Yankees would score their first five runs for Warren in the first two innings off left-hander Cade Povich. Cody Bellinger drove in the first run in the opening frame when he doubled near the right-field line, scoring Aaron Judge.

An inning later, the Bronx Bombers added four more runs against Povich. Ben Rice and José Caballero hit taters. Caballero hit a solo shot into the left-field seats, while Rice hit his 11th homer, a three-run blast, into the seats in right field.

The Yankees would add another run in the seventh off right-hander Albert Suárez. Judge scored his second run of the game on a single by Amed Rosario. It was Judge’s 900th career run, tying him with Jorge Posada for 19th all-time in Yankees franchise history.

New York improved its record to 21-11, the best in the American League.