Aaron Judge, Ben Rice homer to back Will Warren’s gem as Yankees roll past Rangers

Through his first five games over two seasons, Clarke Schmidt pitched to a 6.39 ERA.

After his first six major league appearances with the Braves, Max Fried’s ERA sat at 4.70.

Gerrit Cole was merely promising with the Pirates before blossoming into Gerrit Cole with the Astros.

It can take pitchers a handful of starts or a handful of years to learn how to consistently retire major league hitters. It is possible the education of Will Warren is unfolding rapidly.

The best development of May for the Yankees has been the development of a player no longer a prospect and no longer looking like a project, Warren taking steps toward growing into a legitimate, reliable major league pitcher.

The righty looked like one again Tuesday, when he struck out a career-best 10 and shut down the Rangers in a 5-2, series-opening victory in front of 40,343 in The Bronx.

The Yankees (28-19) moved to a season-best nine games over .500 and won for a ninth time in their past 12, beating Aaron Boone’s brother (Bret, the Rangers hitting coach) and Mark Leiter Jr.’s cousin (Jack, a Rangers starter).

An inning later, the Rangers loaded the bases fairly incidentally: Warren lost Wyatt Langford on a seven-pitch walk, and Josh Jung and Adolis García blooped well-placed singles that created trouble.

With his 101st and final pitch of the game, Warren used one of his better sinkers to catch Marcus Semien looking.

“I think he’s just putting it together a little bit more now,” said Boone, who pulled Warren one out from escaping the danger.

Aaron Judge hits a two-run homer in the eighth inning of the Yankees’ win over the Rangers.

On this night Warren had plenty of help — which included the Yankees’ Leiter, who turned to a disappearing splitter to strike out Joc Pederson and get out of the bases-loaded jam, and included a remarkable catch in the inning from Oswald Peraza, who tumbled over the tarp behind third base.

The support for Warren had started earlier. Rice cranked his 10th homer of the season, a no-doubt shot into the second deck in right, to begin the Yankees scoring in the second inning.

Ben Rice belts a solo homer in the second inning of the Yankees’ win over the Rangers.

The catcher/first baseman — who has taken pregame ground balls at third base, inspiring some curiosity concerning if he can figure out yet another position — reminded why it might be worth exploring every avenue to shoehorn his bat into the lineup.

In the fourth, after a Judge rocket single and steal then a bloop hit from Cody Bellinger, Rice sent a bullet to deep center field for a sacrifice fly and his second RBI.

Will Warren, who held the Rangers scoreless over 5 ²/₃ innings, delivers a pitch during the Yankees’ win.

The Yankees added on in the sixth, when Anthony Volpe flicked an RBI single into center, and tacked on in the eighth, when Judge visited the short porch — the 326-foot shot the shortest of his career — for a two-run homer.

“That one I’m kind of blowing out right there,” Judge, who only trails Shohei Ohtani (17 homers), said with a laugh. “They all count the same.”

Anthony Volpe hits a bloop RBI double during the sixth inning of the Yankees’ win over the Rangers.

The offensive supply became more than incidental when Ian Hamilton gave up a two-run homer to Heim with two outs in the ninth. But Luke Weaver entered and recorded the final out for save No. 6 to ensure Warren’s work mattered.

“Today and these last few starts,” Rice said of Warren, “he’s just seemed a lot more confident out there.”