At the very least, Ben Rice joins the ranks of other Yankee prospects like Kevin Maas, Shane Spencer and Shelley Duncan who emerged like shooting stars but never again came close to matching the power and explosiveness of their early years.
If that’s all there is to it, Rice will play a key role for the Yankees in 2024, providing arguably the most exhilarating moment of the season and the most stress-relief for an inconsistent team.
But Rice’s balanced approach and smooth, effortless swing with surprising weight create a chance to imagine more than just a quick start. He’s had essentially one good at-bat after another since his June 18 debut. And on Saturday, as the Yankees suffered their most frustrating loss of the season, pitched their worst in years and raised all sorts of ugly questions about focus and hustle, Rice replaced anxiety with jubilation, at least for a day. From his first at-bat to his last, Rice changed the conversation (at least for a day) from an MLB-worst 4-14 record to a 14-4 thumping against the Red Sox.
Rice became the first Yankees rookie to hit three home runs. He also became the first Yankees rookie to score seven RBIs since July 23, 1925. The player was Ivy Leaguer (Columbia University) Lou Gehrig, who had taken over first base after veteran left-hander Wally Pipp collapsed with a headache in April of that year, but never returned. Rice took over first base after veteran left-hander Anthony Rizzo, also an Ivy Leaguer (Dartmouth University), was sidelined with a fractured right wrist on June 16.
Now, for perspective: While Mars was setting records for fewest at-bats and home runs during his 1990 rookie season while filling in for an injured Don Mattingly, the Yankees began considering whether the two could coexist in the future. So, there’s a long way to go from here to there. Rizzo fills an important leadership role within the Yankees ecosystem.
But Rizzo’s hitting has been sluggish and he’s not set to return from the 60-day disabled list until Aug. 16 at the earliest, so Rice will have ample opportunity to prove he’s the real answer in 2024 and beyond, because acquiring a good lefty hitter on the cheap with on-base ability and power would allow the Yankees to be more aggressive with their spending elsewhere (imagine how much it would cost Hal Steinbrenner to keep Juan Soto).
That’s all down the road. For now, the Yankees are struggling in every facet of the game, and on Friday at Boston they were one strike away from losing 5-3 in the 10th inning due to a lack of attention to detail and lack of energy.
The Yankees were hoping their ace, Gerrit Cole, could turn the tide, but the Red Sox did to Cole four more times what they did to Clay Holmes on Friday when he blew a ninth-inning save: They gave him more at-bats, more pitches and capitalized on his errors. So the Yankees needed a hero from the other end of the seniority and salary scale.
In his 17th game and batting leadoff for the third time, Rice homered in the first inning, followed by 406-foot, three-run homers off Chase Anderson in the fifth and seventh innings. It was the game-defining first home run and capped what Aaron Boone called “a day for legends.” At that point, Aaron Judge, from the on-deck circle, urged the fans to get louder as Soto came off the plate and urged Rice out of the dugout. And while Rice was initially hesitant, he found an opening in the dugout and drew a huge standing ovation, the happiest moment for the Yankees in weeks.
“Obviously, we’re looking for any success we can get because we’re trying to overcome obstacles,” Cole said. “I look at this as a little bit more success than that. This is a historic day, this is a magical day.”
Rice grew up a Yankees fan in the Boston suburbs and said he expected either the Yankees or Red Sox to draft him in 2021. The Yankees did a great job getting to know players who didn’t play in college because the 2020-21 Ivy League season was canceled due to COVID-19.
His minor league trademark was his bat, and in just his first 60 at-bats in the MLB, Rice is rarely off-balance or fooled. He has the acumen to know if it’s a strike or not. Boone uses the phrase “slow heartbeat.” The game never seems to move too fast for him. The greatness of the Yankees, the big crowds, the major league pitchers, don’t seem to faze him. Nor do the losses that followed during his tenure with the Yankees.
And on Saturday, when the Yankees needed a hero to counter the rising negativity, Rice delivered three big hits. At the very least, he joined Mars, Spencer and Duncan. But that swing, that approach, that calm in the storm, makes you wonder if this was more than just flash-and-bread.
