WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Ben Rice clubbed his 10th home run of the year on April 27, again matching Aaron Judge for the team lead, he chuckled when asked about keeping pace with the Yankees captain.
“I don’t know how long this is going to last, but I’m enjoying it right now being this close,” he joked.
A little more than month later, after Saturday night’s 6-4 loss to the A’s, they are tied at 17 homers apiece, and it does not look like Rice is fading anytime soon.
The Yankees’ slugging first baseman has continued to reinforce that he is among the game’s best hitters through the first two months of the season.
After going 4-for-5 with two doubles (one of them a gift on a pop-up) and a home run in Friday’s win over the Athletics, Rice, who went 1-for-3 with an RBI walk in Saturday’s loss, entered the game batting .303 with a 1.047 OPS — which trailed only Astros star Yordan Alvarez (1.056) for the top mark in the major leagues.
“That’s Benny Barrels, keeps on doing it,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I thought he had great at-bats in the Kansas City series and continued it there [Friday].”
Rice had actually cooled off a bit in recent weeks, going 11-for-66 (.167) with a .567 OPS and four home runs during a 16-game stretch after he missed four straight games with a left hand contusion. But the Yankees felt his quality of at-bats and quality of contact never suffered, and now he is being rewarded for it yet again, having gone 9-for-14 over his last three games before Saturday.
“Day in and day out, even since he got to the league, he just wants to learn, he wants to get better,” Judge said. “I see him around [Paul Goldschmidt], I see him watching [Cody Bellinger] in the cage, guys in the cage. He’s getting here early doing the little things. You stack that up over the course of a long season, good things are going to happen. It’s been fun to watch his growth from his first game here to where he is now.
“It’s must-watch TV when he steps up to the plate.”
With Friday’s solo blast, Rice became the fifth-fastest Yankee to hit 50 career home runs, doing so in 240 games. The other names on the list paint a picture of a few different ways the 27-year-old could go from here. Gary Sánchez was fastest (161 games), followed by Judge (174), Joe DiMaggio (200) and Gleyber Torres (231). That’s one Hall of Famer, a future Hall of Famer, and two former top prospects who fizzled out in different ways by the time they left The Bronx.
“He’s showing the world he’s a great hitter; he really is,” Boone said. “He’s continued to get better every few months, starting when he first got to the big leagues in ’24 and had some success, had some struggles. Obviously, put together a really strong on-balance season last year and has taken it to another level now this year. His experience is starting to go along with his ability to really hit. It’s leading to a really dangerous hitter in the box.”
Goldschmidt has served as an important mentor for Rice, helping teach him the ropes at first base after being a catcher for most of his career. The veteran was so impressed with what Rice did in his first full season as a big leaguer last year — hitting 26 home runs in 138 games with an .836 OPS — to the point he wondered, “Man, I don’t know if there’s much room for improvement.”
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“But he’s been doing it,” Goldschmidt said. “He’s such a smart hitter, and his swing is so good. He controls the zone. He really does everything, and it’s fun to watch. He just puts a good [at-bat] on them every time.”
Playing in his 16th season in the big leagues, Goldschmidt knows what it takes to stick around to have long-term success, and he sees those qualities in Rice.
“Those traits are more than just the stats, but his work ethic and how focused he is,” Goldschmidt said. “He’s a very, very smart player. He’s got the ability to make adjustments and continue to improve.”