Will Fenway boy Ben Rice prove an ace again in New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox Game 2?
Ben Rice grew up about 25 miles from Fenway Park in Cohasset, Massachusetts, and spent childhood nights in the shadow of the Green Monster. On Tuesday, he tore the Boston Red Sox apart from the other side of baseball’s oldest feud. The question now is whether the New York Yankees slugger can do it again in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series.
New York Yankees lead the best-of-three series 1-0 after a 9-0 rout at Yankee Stadium. Max Fried starts Wednesday night against Sonny Gray as Boston Red Sox try to force a Thursday Game 3. Aaron Judge remains out with a calf injury, so the lineup still runs through Ben Rice.
Ben Rice and Cam Schlittler torch their hometown team
Ben Rice went 4-for-5 with two home runs, a double and six RBIs. He outhit the entire Boston Red Sox lineup by himself. A 423-foot solo shot off Erik Miller in the fifth inning made it 2-0. An RBI single in the seventh padded the lead. Then he ended the night with a 408-foot grand slam off Brayan Bello in a five-run eighth.
It was the first four-hit postseason game by a Yankee since Gleyber Torres in 2020. The six RBIs tied the franchise’s single-game playoff record. Ben Rice became the first Yankee, and just the sixth player in MLB history, with at least four hits and six RBIs in a postseason game.
Walpole’s Cam Schlittler, another Massachusetts native, struck out 10 over 6 1/3 scoreless innings and 117 pitches. Two South Shore kids turned a rivalry opener into a laugher.
“I’ll remember getting a W versus the Red Sox. There’s nothing better than that,” Ben Rice said. “I’ll remember Cam going out there and just being lights-out, like he always is. It was an awesome night.”
The Cohasset kid who wrote ‘Yankees Rule’ on Pesky’s Pole
Ben Rice was a New York Yankees fan in Red Sox country. Derek Jeter posters hung in his room. On a Fenway Park tour as a boy, he scrawled “Yankees Rule” on Pesky’s Pole. He later signed the Green Monster as a visiting player. Boston’s amateur scouts liked him. The Yankees drafted him out of Dartmouth College in 2021. This season he smashed 41 home runs with an .897 OPS and made his first All-Star team while Aaron Judge missed months.
Ben Rice treated October like April. “You can find success by just being consistent every day,” he said. “You get to the postseason here today, [and] all the consistency that you had in the regular season, you’ve just got to carry it right over into the postseason. So I approached it like any other game, and do the things that helped you over 162.”
Can Ben Rice do it again with Max Fried on the mound?
Game 2 is an elimination night for Boston. Max Fried (5-5, 2.80 ERA) gets the ball. Sonny Gray tries to keep the Red Sox alive. Teams that take a 1-0 lead in a best of three Wild Card Series have won it 21 of 24 times. Home clubs that go up 1-0 have never lost.
Cam Schlittler already warned that one win is not enough. “The job’s not done; we’ve got to get another win tomorrow,” Cam Schlittler said. Ben Rice does not need to hit two more homers. He only needs to stay the same player who carried New York through Aaron Judge’s absence.
