Warren happy to be back in Bronx
HOUSTON — When Adam Warren heard he had been traded back to the Yankees, the North Carolina native felt like he was going home again. “I enjoyed my time over there in Chicago,” Warren said. “It didn’t quite work out for me and so I’m happy to come back somewhere that I’m comfortable and I feel like people know me. Hopefully I can kind of fit right back in.”
Warren was 3-2 with a 5.91 ERA in 29 games (one start) for the Cubs, who acquired him from the Yankees during the offseason in a trade for Starlin Castro. The righthander never fit into a specific role with manager Joe Maddon, leaving him without a routine while preparing to pitch.
“I have a lot of opinions on why it didn’t go well but I think mainly I never really had a set role,” said Warren, who thought the Cubs wanted him to be a starter but never had an opening in the rotation. “It’s tough because I pride myself on that versatility, but not really knowing when you’re coming in, that was the hardest thing; the unpredictability of not being able to guess when I might pitch. I think I struggled with that a little bit, but really it came down to I wasn’t executing enough pitches. I wasn’t sharp enough out there, I guess.”
Joe Girardi believes returning to the organization he pitched for from 2012-15 will help Warren get back into a groove.
“I think a lot of times it can be tough for players when they change teams,” Girardi said. “You don’t have those relationships, the coaches don’t understand you the way a guy who has been around you three or four years or look for little things when you get a little out of whack. There’s a lot of talent in Adam Warren and we’ve seen it.”
Warren will work as a setup man, though Girardi seems set on employing Warren, Chad Green and Luis Severino as multipleinning relievers, pitching in the sixth and seventh before turning the ball over to the tandem of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller.
HEADS UP!
Chase Headley jammed his neck into the padded wall down the left-field line after diving for a foul ball in the ninth inning. He remained in the game and expects to be in the lineup Wednesday.
STAT OF THE DAY
Chase Headley’s two hits Monday night gave him 1,148 for his career, moving him past Roy Hartzell for the most in history by a player born in Colorado.
TEST YOUR YANKEES IQ
Who was the first pitcher in the modern era (post 1900) to commit three errors in one inning?
NEXT GAME
Wednesday, 8 p.m., at Astros, Masahiro Tanaka (7-2, 3.00) vs. Lance McCullers (5-4, 3.33). TV: YES
“I just kind of slid into it,” Headley said. “I was trying to stop before I hit the wall; I didn’t want to flip over it. I kind of halfdove and figured I’d stop before I got to the wall. It didn’t happen. The wall was nice and soft; I just compressed into it pretty good.”
CHASED TO TRIPLE-A
To make room for Warren on the roster, Chasen Shreve was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre. The lefty is holding righthanded hitters to a .641 OPS this season, but lefties have a 1.205 OPS against him.
OUT AT FIRST
The Alex Rodriguez firstbase experiment isn’t completely dead, but it certainly hasn’t gained much traction since A-Rod decided to start taking grounders during the All-Star break. “We haven’t had him take a whole lot of ground balls there lately,” Girardi said. “Tex seems to be OK and I’ve been using Ref.”
Girardi said A-Rod could do more work at first base between now and Monday, when the Yankees play the first of two games at Citi Field under NL rules.