Any New York Yankee player who hits three home runs in a game against the Boston Red Sox is sure to turn heads, and considering Ben Rice is just a rookie, he may have made his mark on the lore of this great baseball rivalry.
Rice certainly made Yankees history, becoming the first rookie in the franchise’s illustrious history to hit three home runs in a single game.
Rice hit three home runs and was 3-for-5 with seven RBIs in a 14-4 victory over the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.
A first-inning homer off Boston’s Josh Winckowski gave New York a 1-0 lead, but more damage was to come: Rice hit a three-run homer off Chase Anderson in the fifth inning to extend the Yankees’ lead to 10-4. Rice followed up with another three-run homer off Anderson in the seventh inning.
Rice came into the game batting .261 with one home run and a .755 OPS, so this performance was probably unexpected.
In 60 games with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Rice hit 15 home runs with a .275 batting average and a .925 OPS. Rice was promoted in mid-June after Anthony Rizzo was placed on the disabled list with a broken arm and expected to miss at least eight weeks.
Rice’s fireworks show came at an ideal time for the Yankees, who had lost four straight games and 14 of their past 20 before Saturday’s game.
Starting pitcher Gerrit Cole must have appreciated the scoring support in a tough game, too, as he gave up four runs on seven hits and struck out eight in 4 1/3 innings. Cole was especially upset after Rafael Devers hit a solo home run in the fifth inning to give Boston a 4-3 lead.
What was even more shocking than the Cole homer was when Devers threw his bat away after seeing his own fly ball sail into the stands.
Or maybe Cole was upset that the Red Sox third baseman continued to win against him.
Devers, who went 2-for-2 against Cole, improved his career batting average to .342 with eight home runs. Per Ian Brown of MLB.com, no other hitter has ever hit more than four home runs off Cole.
Devers also reached a milestone with his first hit against Cole. He was the 33rd player in Boston to reach 1,000 hits, and by doing so at age 27, he became just the sixth player in franchise history to reach 1,000 hits before turning 28. The others were Carl Yastrzemski, Tris Speaker, Bobby Doerr and Xander Bogaerts, making Devers part of a prestigious line-up of players who had done so.
The Yankees are currently 2.5 games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East, with Boston eight games back in third place.
