Ben Rice gave the Yankees all the thunder they could muster Monday night, driving two more home runs in a 5-2 loss to the Rays in ALDS Game 2 at Tropicana Field. New York heads home facing a 2-0 hole in the best-of-five series, but Rice has turned the opening stretch of October into his own power display.
The 27-year-old first baseman connected once against Freddy Peralta and again against Ian Seymour, both on changeups. The Yankees will try to begin their climb back Wednesday, when Game 3 moves to Yankee Stadium for an 8 p.m. ET first pitch on TBS, truTV, UniMas and HBO Max.
Quick facts
- Rice has seven hits and four homers through four postseason games this year.
- He is the first Yankee to record two multihomer games during one postseason.
- His five career postseason homers rank second among Yankees in their first 10 playoff games, behind Bernie Williams’ six.
- Rice’s four homers over New York’s first four games match Lou Gehrig’s 1928 total and trail only Giancarlo Stanton’s five in 2020.
Rice had a quieter first October a year ago, batting 4-for-18 with one homer in six games. This time around, he opened with a two-homer game in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, then repeated the feat against Tampa Bay.
For a franchise making its 61st postseason appearance, that is new territory. Rice is the first player in Yankees history to post two multihomer games in the same playoff run, and he reached the mark in only four games.
Across Major League postseason history, no player had previously logged two multihomer games within his club’s first four games of a single October. Rice is one of eight players with multiple multihomer games in one postseason, joining Shohei Ohtani, Nick Castellanos, Yordan Alvarez, Chase Utley, Jayson Werth, Troy Glaus and Willie Aikens.
He also matched Fernando Tatis Jr., Eric Karros, Glaus, Williams and Aikens for the most multihomer games by a player over his first 10 postseason appearances.
Changeups could not keep him quiet
Peralta’s changeup had been a particularly effective weapon after his move to Tampa Bay. Before Monday, opponents were 7-for-58 when finishing plate appearances against that pitch since the trade, with each of those seven hits a single.
Rice changed that line with his first homer of the night. It was the fourth homer allowed by Peralta on a changeup this season, postseason included, and the first since he joined the Rays.
There was some history in the matchup, too. Rice had already homered off a Peralta changeup on May 17, one of three such homers surrendered by the pitcher during the season.
The second blast came on a Seymour changeup, making Rice the second player this year to hit two changeups out in one game. Gunnar Henderson did it May 27.
Rice also became the first player in the pitch-tracking era, which began in 2008, to hit two postseason home runs off changeups in the same game. The Yankees still need wins, not records, but their young slugger has supplied a loud reason to believe the series is not finished.
