– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — Ben Rice is causing a problem with all of his hot hitting, something his manager surely doesn’t mind as long the former continues to perform like one of the best hitters in baseball no matter who’s on the mound.
Rice smacked a three-run home run, his 11th of the season, to cap a four-run second inning for the New York Yankees as they defeated the Baltimore Orioles 7-2 inside Yankee Stadium on Friday night. Jose Caballero hit a solo shot in the second to give the Yankees the lead for good while Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Rice each had two base knocks as part of New York’s 11-hit onslaught.
Though at least one part of New York’s new dynamic duo in the middle of the lineup won’t be mistaken for Mantle and Maris of 1961, Rice continues to shine as one of the top young hitters in the game, with his biggest jump coming when he is allowed to stay in the lineup against left-handed pitching as opposed to being platooned in that situation since his June 2024 debut. Coming into this season, the left-handed-batting Rice sported just a.189 batting average with a .683 OPS in 164 plate appearances against southpaws.
But 2026 has been a different story for Rice in the box against lefties, coming into today with .370 average and the most left-on-left home runs (four) in the American League — and that was before he laced a 1-0 slider from Orioles starter Cade Povich into the right-centerfield bleachers with runners on first and second to give New York a 5-1 lead.
Judge, who batted behind Rice in the No. 3 spot, sports a healthy, and rather Judge-ian, 1.019 OPS, but Rice now has that number beat by 150 points after the first month and change of the season.
“We’re continuing to see the evolution of one of the game’s really outstanding hitters, simple as that,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Rice. “He’s really disciplined, he’s got a really good plan night in and night out for who’s he’s facing and what he wants to look for and he does a really good job controlling the zone. This is kind of the trajectory he’z been on since h4e first debuted. He’s just gotten better and better to the point of now that he’s been a wrecking ball.”
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