Before Saturday, the New York Yankees' offense resembled a dying animal, slowly withering away along with the team's championship hopes. However, that was before rookie first baseman Ben Rice waved his magic wand.
Rice sounded off on becoming the first Yankee rookie to ever hit three home runs in a game, via YES Network.
As soon as Saturday's game ended, @M_Marakovits spoke with the man of the hour, Ben Rice, about his historic three-homer performance. #YANKSonYES 👏👏👏
“It's humbling, honestly,” Rice admitted. “Knowing how many legends have worn this jersey before me, and to be in a category like that is pretty amazing.”
Rice's three homers and seven RBI powered New York to a 14-4 victory over the Boston Red Sox, snapping a four-game losing streak. The 25-year-old is now slashing .294/.383/.588 with four homers and 12 RBI across 51 at-bats. If there were any questions about who would start at first base this year after Anthony Rizzo went down, those have now been answered.
How did Rice manage to etch his name in the record books of such a storied club?
Rice provides the Yankees with a much-needed jolt of energy
Ironically, there's no special explanation for how Rice pulled off the hat trick. The lefty slugger simply did what he always does.
“Just the same approach as always,” he said. “Control what I can control, swing at pitches in the zone, and go up there looking to do damage.”
Hilariously, the rookie is so green that his teammates had to explain to him how to do a curtain call.
“Yeah, I honestly had no idea what they were talking about,” Rice admitted. “They kind of guided me over to the steps, and it was a moment I'll never forget.”
New York's offense had been suffering recently from a lack of production outside of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Yankees play-by-play commentator Michael Kay shared on the YES broadcast that the rest of the lineup had been hitting .202 the last few weeks.
New York manager Aaron Boone, who recently replaced Anthony Volpe with Rice in the leadoff spot, couldn't be prouder of the Massachusetts native, via Mark W. Sanchez of the New York Post.
“Kind of a legendary day,” Boone said.
Rice is now the 26th Yankee to hit at least three homers in a regular-season game. The Dartmouth alum was called up in June to provide depth after Rizzo's injury, and now Rizzo may have been Wally Pipped.
Pipp, of course, was the Yankees' starting first baseman before getting hurt in 1925. His backup was Lou Gehrig, who took the job and ran with it.
“Definitely a great bounce-back win,” Rice continued. “A lot of gutsy at-bats, gutsy pitching, so to put an exclamation mark on that win was big time for us.”
New York will hope that this game begins a mid-season rebirth, as the team hasn't won its last six series. It has a chance to end that streak in the series finale Sunday night in the Bronx.
