LOS ANGELES — Few pitchers in the American League have performed better in the last month than Will Warren.

And so, in the confident 25-year-old’s mind, Saturday night’s start against the Dodgers comes at the perfect time.

“It’s cool to go out there and see where we stack up,” Warren said.

The righthander enters the start with a 3-2 record and a 4.09 ERA but is 2-0 with a 2.05 ERA in his previous four starts, allowing 15 hits, striking out 33 and walking five in 22 innings in that stretch.  

On Sunday in Denver, Warren struggled in the first inning because of the thin air’s effect on his pitches, allowing two runs, but the Rockies didn't score in his next three innings in a 5-4 Yankees victory. “I love this outing for Will Warren,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after that start.

Boone loved the outing because of what it said about Warren’s still-a-work-in-progress development as a starter. Clearly impacted by the elevation, Warren limited the damage in the first after the Rockies loaded the bases with none out  and made the necessary adjustments thereafter.

“Maybe six months ago, he doesn’t react quite as well or with as much poise and confidence,” Boone said. “Instead of a blowup inning, it’s manageable. I thought he didn’t blink out there. Just watching his body language, watching his temp and everything. I just thought he handled it really well.”

Warren, a 2021 eighth-round draft pick who debuted for the Yankees last season, made the club out of spring training only because Gerrit Cole (lost for the year), Luis Gil (lost for the first three months minimum) and Clarke Schmidt (lost for the first two weeks) started the season on the injured list.

Warren, who was beaten out by Gil for the fifth starter job in spring training 2024, had a rough start this season, going 1-2 with a 5.65 ERA in his first seven starts. But something seemed to click in a May 9 start at Sacramento when Warren took a shutout into the eighth in a career-high 7 1/3-inning outing. Warren allowed one run (Mark Leiter Jr. allowed an inherited runner to score), four hits and a walk. He struck out seven, bumped that total to nine in his next outing in Seattle and then struck out a career-best 10 on May 20 against the Rangers.

“Command and location,” Cole — out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery but with the team on this Southern California portion of the trip — said of the difference in Warren the last month compared to last year and the rough going he had at the start of this one. “It’s something we sat down and talked about a few weeks ago, and we’re really seeing a nice step forward in that regard.”

Warren, who has drawn comparisons to former Yankee Michael King because of the pair’s similarities in arm angles and the supreme confidence with which they carry themselves, is eager to see how his stuff plays against one of the sport’s most feared lineups.

The Dodgers enter this series leading the National League in homers (87), batting average (.263), on-base percentage (.341), slugging (.458), and OPS (.799). They’re second in runs (314).

Warren acknowledged feeling a little more “juice” in facing the kind of lineup the Dodgers have, one featuring one of the most dangerous 1-2-3 combinations in the game in Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Betts did not start the series opener because of a toe injury.

“Those first three hitters — Shohei, Mookie and Freddie — are probably all three top 10 players in the game,” Warren said.

Warren, who has never pitched at Dodger Stadium and who said starting a game in this iconic ballpark has been on his bucket list dating to his days growing up in Brandon, Mississippi, is eager to see how his improving-by-the-start arsenal measures up.

“I don’t know if it’s testing it,” Warren said of his stuff against such a potent batting order. “It’s more like I still think what I’ve got is better than whoever I’m facing. I think you’ve got to think that way. I think everybody in here thinks that. That’s just the competitor in all of us.”