Yankees’ Will Warren strikes out career-high nine in second straight encouraging outing

SEATTLE — Well after he had finished off his five innings of work Wednesday, Will Warren’s ERA ticked up.

A late scoring change turned the only two runs he allowed against the Mariners from unearned runs into earned ones.

What did not change, however, was the fact that the young right-hander continued to show signs of progress that the Yankees could sorely use as he turned in a second straight encouraging start.

Warren struck out a career-high nine batters in the 3-2 win over the Mariners at T-Mobile Park, one more than the previous high he established two starts ago.

He has struck out seven or more in each of his past three games, totaling 24 punch-outs as he tries to turn his quality stuff into more consistent outings.

“Just getting ahead early, attacking the zone, being confident in my stuff,” Warren said.

Early on this season, the Yankees rotation has often been Max Fried, Carlos Rodón and hope for the best.

But Clarke Schmidt has looked sharper over his past few starts after a delayed debut and Warren is showing more growth of late to begin solidifying the rotation — which has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 23 of their past 28 starts.

After going through some growing pains in limited action last year and early this season, Warren has started to flash more consistency of late.

Coming off the best start of his career last Friday against the A’s, when he gave up just one run across 7 ¹/₃ innings, the 25-year-old scattered three hits and one walk across five innings against a more challenging Mariners lineup.

“That’s what I love to see,” Aaron Judge said. “He had the great outing for us in [Sacramento]. Impressive, just pounding the strike zone. Even here, same thing. I feel like his curveball and sweeper were really on today. Good feel for them, they looked really sharp. Just impressive. The poise out there, the confidence. I know he went down, they got those two runs early, but he battled for us and gave us some length and turned it over to the great bullpen we got.”

Warren threw his curveball a career-high 13 times Wednesday, four of those pitches finishing off strikeouts.

“We’ve worked hard the last couple weeks on that,” Warren said. “I think it’s come along nicely. I had a good feel for it today and just sticking with it. … We have the shape, we got the grip, it’s more me having confidence in it and ripping it through the zone.”

Warren was getting ahead more routinely in this one, which helped, even if the Mariners turned too many of those into deep counts — an area in which Warren still has plenty of room for improvement. Had he been more efficient, he might have gone deeper into the game instead of being done after five innings and 92 pitches.

He started out hot, though, striking out five of the first six batters he faced to set the tone for his day.

“I try to just say pitch to pitch, but it definitely gives me a little confidence heading into the third inning,” he said. “Just trying to go dominate.”