Yankees top Rangers as Warren strikes out career-high 10 - Newsday
After hosting an uncomfortable reunion with Juan Soto last weekend, the Yankees held a different kind of get-together when the Texas Rangers came to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night.
A nicer one.
Instead of jeers and foul-mouthed chants, good vibes filled the chilly Bronx air. In fact, it’s possible this was the first game ever at Yankee Stadium with zero boos.
It featured family reunions (Yankees manager Aaron Boone and his older brother, new Texas hitting coach Bret Boone, and Yankees reliever Mark Leiter Jr. and his cousin, Texas starter Jack Leiter); the return of former Yankees fan favorite Kyle Higashioka, who received a video tribute on the centerfield scoreboard; and a sighting of Wednesday’s scheduled starter Jacob deGrom, who will pitch in New York for the first time since leaving the Mets in 2022 to sign with the Rangers.
But, as Bret Boone put it about his brother: “It’s nice to see him over there. It’s a fun story . . . [But at] 7 o’clock, let’s get back to work.”
Aaron won Round 1 of the brothers’ battle thanks mostly to Will Warren, who struck out a career-high 10 in 5 1⁄3 scoreless innings in the Yankees’ 5-2 victory before 40,343.
The Yankees (28-19) have won 9 of 12.
Ben Rice and Aaron Judge homered to back Warren, who broke the career high of nine strikeouts he set in five innings in his last outing in Seattle.
In his last four starts, Warren (3-2) has struck out 34 in 22 1⁄3 innings and lowered his ERA from 5.63 to 4.05.
The Rangers were last in the AL in runs when they hired Bret Boone on May 5. The former All-Star second baseman was working as a podcast host when he got the call from manager Bruce Bochy. He had never been a big-league coach.
“Certainly good to see him,” said Aaron Boone, who exchanged lineup cards with Bret at home plate before the game. “I’m sure I’ll peek over there at him at some point during the game and see what his act looks like. It’s good to have him here.”
Bret, who is four years older, said: “I’ve always been proud of my little brother, but I’m really proud of the job he’s done. He’s under a microscope here in New York. And I told him, ‘Where else would you want to be?’ ”
The Boones went out to dinner on Monday night. There might have been some brotherly ribbing.
“It was new for me,” Bret said. “He actually paid the bill.”
Higashioka was the backup catcher who played for the Yankees from 2017-23.
“Being a Yankee is really special,” Higashioka told MLB.com. “I feel extremely privileged to have been a part of this organization for so many years. The fans were really good to me. I loved playing in front of them.”
The pleasantries between this former Yankee and the fans were a little different than what Soto experienced. And after the white-hot intensity of the Subway Series, Tuesday’s game took place in such a low-key atmosphere that fans were doing the wave in the later innings.
Rice gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead with a two-out homer into the second deck in right in the second inning against lefthander Patrick Corbin. It was Rice’s 10th home run.
Rice struck again in the fourth with a long sacrifice fly to center that was caught on the dead run with a leap by Sam Haggerty. The Yankees made it 3-0 in the sixth on Anthony Volpe’s two-out bloop RBI double.
Warren allowed five hits and walked one in a 101-pitch outing. He was helped on the first out of the sixth by third baseman Oswald Peraza, who caught a pop-up by Josh Smith while leaping onto and falling over the tarp, Peraza’s legs pointing to the sky as he sunk between the tarp and wall.
Third base umpire Brock Ballou leaned over the tarp to make sure Peraza still had the ball in his glove. He did. Peraza was checked out for what appeared to be an injury near his left eye, but it turned out he had lost a contact lens.
Judge made it 5-0 with a 326-foot two-run home run to the short porch in right in the eighth. Judge’s AL-leading 16th home run was the shortest of his career.
“That’s the shortest one?” said Judge, who went 2-for-4 and is batting .403. “We’ll take it. It counts the same as the longest one, I think.”
Jonah Heim got the Rangers on the board with two outs in the ninth with a two-run homer off Ian Hamilton. After a triple by Haggerty, Luke Weaver came on and got Smith on a pop to second for a two-pitch save.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.