Yankees’ 41-homer breakout is becoming impossible to ignore
· Yahoo Sports
Forty home runs would have been a pretty good stopping point for Ben Rice. He got there in the first inning Wednesday, then hit No. 41 in the fourth. The Yankees beat Tampa Bay 9-2, and Rice went 3-for-4 with a walk and two RBI.
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I think we’ve spent too much of this season treating Rice like a pleasant surprise. Forty-one homers and a .899 OPS through 151 games is not a short hot streak. It is middle-of-the-order production, and the Yankees need to plan their October lineup with that in mind.
He is hitting .263 with a .362 on-base percentage and a .537 slugging percentage. The 83 walks matter as much as the home-run total to me. Pitchers haven’t been able to stop him by simply staying off the plate, and he isn’t surviving on one good month.
Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images via Reuters ConnectThe Yankees should stop treating Rice as a bonus bat
Rice drove in both of his runs on solo shots Wednesday, so this wasn’t a game where he cleaned up traffic created by everyone else. He generated the damage himself. The question of what to do with Rice has been there for weeks, but his latest game made the answer more obvious: keep his bat in the heart of the order.
That doesn’t mean every October matchup will be simple. Opposing managers will change pitchers late, and the Yankees have other hitters they want in the lineup. Rice has earned the benefit of being the hitter they plan around rather than the one they squeeze in after the rest of the card is set.
0What do you think?Post a comment.Two swings were enough to make the point
The first homer came with George Lombard Jr. waiting to celebrate at the plate. The second was a reminder that the Rays still had no clean answer three innings later. Rice now has 97 RBI to go with those 41 homers. With the postseason close, those are the numbers of a hitter opponents will have to account for every night.
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