Yankees’ ‘poster boy’ for bad luck rewarded with ‘7 steaks’

ST. LOUIS — As much struggling that second-year catcher Austin Wells has done at the plate, the Yankees still love the way he handles the pitching staff and his framing is elite. Also, his 15 homers and 56 RBI in 353 plate appearances show he’s been pretty productive for a .206 hitter.

As for Wells playing a lot less frequently over the last three weeks, this isn’t all based on performance.

This is about getting regular starts for Ben Rice, who now is sharing the catching duties with Wells after beginning the season as the regular DH when Giancarlo Stanton was on the injured list for the first 70 games.

It’s same situation for the Yankees over at first base, Rice’s other position.

The Yankees aren’t down on Paul Goldschmidt, whose solid rebound season at age 37 has gone from sizzling hot to cooling off to consistent contributor with more rest days that’s he’s ever had in July and August.

Fewer starts for Goldschmidt means more first base starts for Rice, who in his first full season as a big leaguer already is one of its most dangerous left-handed hitters even though he sports an unimpressive but very misleading .240 batting average.

And with the Yankees fighting just to make the playoffs, manager Aaron Boone wants Rice playing almost every game.

Starting at first on Saturday night at Busch Stadium, Rice finally got a big payoff for barreling up a bunch of liners going 3-for-5 with a homer, double, walk and — count ‘em — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven RBIs.

Thanks plenty to Rice, the Yankees rallied from a 5-2 deficit after two innings to beat the Cardinals 12-8 to remain 6 1/2 games behind the AL East-leading Blue Jays and stretch their lead on the Guardians for the last AL wild-card spot from 1 ½ to 2 ½ games.

‘To break out like (Rice) did with traffic out there all day long, that was seven steaks,” Boone said with a smile. “That’s a pretty big night.”

And well deserved.

“He’s hit the ball hard all year,” Boone added. “We talk about unlucky and all that. He is the poster child. He’s hit so many balls on the screws for outs this year.

Rice said “it’s good to have some hard contact and get rewarded,” but he couldn’t help pointing out that he “still mixed one (unlucky at-bat) in at the end there.”

His last time up, Rice scorched a liner to right field that had a 106 mph exit velocity … and was caught.

But before that, the Yankees went from trailing 5-3 to leading 6-5 in the fourth inning when Rice crushed a three-run homer to right field that was 108.3 mph off the bat.

The score stayed that way until the sixth inning when Rice came up with the bases loaded, then cleared them for a 9-5 Yankees lead with a gap-shot double to right-center field that had a 104.6 exit velo.

Rice added a line-drive single to right in the seventh inning that was clocked only at 82.1 mph but was no cheap hit. This one made it a seven-RBI night that matched his rookie breakout on July 6, 2024, the day Rice hit three homers against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.

For the season, Rice is up to 18 homers and 45 RBI despite starting only 78 of the Yankees’ first 123 games – 48 at designated hitter, 27 at first base and 13 (all since June 13) at catcher.

This is big improvement from Rice’s 50-game rookie season in 2024. He started out batting .294 with four homers and 12 RBI in his first 17 games but ended up with poor offensive stats, a .171 average with seven homers and 48 strikeouts in 152 at-bats.

After the season, Rice returned to his Massachusetts home and spent a lot of time in the gym adding strength that the Yankees noticed in February and March.

“He was killing the ball in spring training,” Boone said. “So we knew he was going to have a big role for us, especially with (Stanton) down to start the season. That created a lot of (DH) opportunities there.

“He’s taken it and turned himself into a really prominent player.”

With just average luck, Rice’s stats would be a lot better. Before all but one of his hard-hit balls on Saturday brought good results, his .289 expected batting average in Baseball Savant’s analytics ranked in the top 90 percentile. He’s also scoring very well with his 93.4 exit velo (top 97 percentile), 15.7 percent barrel rate (top 94 percentile), 73.8 mph bat speed (top 75 percentile) and 55.2 hard-hit percentage (top 97 percentile).

Yankees captain Aaron Judge spotted a difference in Rice from last season during spring training.

“I noticed his swing was tightened little bit,” Judge said. “Better mechanics. He was more consistent. He’s had the power and now I think he’s able to tap into it consistently.

“That’s what I’m seeing now with every at-bat. He’s on every pitch … changeup, slider, heater. He consistently gets the barrel there. When you can do that, that’s when you can take off.”

You can take off if most hard-hit balls stop ending up in gloves.

Heading into the weekend, Rice was batting just .206 in his last 22 games despite this slump including a lot of good at-bats and hard contact.

Friday night brought better results for Rice, 2-for-5 in a 4-3 series-opening win in St. Louis.

Next was a Saturday breakout with Rice hitting second behind Trent Grisham in a Yankees lineup that was missing three former MVPs — Cody Bellinger (under the weather), Giancarlo Stanton (lower body soreness) and Goldschmidt (mild knee sprain).

But with two-time MVP Judge batting third, Cardinals starting pitcher Sonny Gray aggressively went after Rice in strategy that was like playing (and losing) baseball’s version of Russian Roulette.

“That’s a good guy to have behind you,” Rice said. “It’s going to make pitchers more willing to throw you stuff over the plate, so to have a guy like (Judge) in your lineup, let alone hitting behind you, that’s pretty nice.”

Rice is a very confident player because his hit tool has played up since he was a little kid living near Boston and rooting for the Red Sox. It played up in high school years, Rice’s Ivy League seasons at Dartmouth, at every level in the minor leagues and now as a major leaguer who even wows teammates.

“Big-time power is what stands out,” Grisham said after he played second fiddle to Rice going 4-for-5 with a walk. “He’s very diligent in what he believes in, which goes a long way in this game.”

After making the Yankees’ Opening Day roster, Rice’s individual goals for the season didn’t include reaching any statistic numbers. He opted for more simple ones that don’t have limits, and he’s achieving them.

“I wanted to approach it one day at a time,” Rice said, “and try to go out there and have good at bats, try to find multiple ways in the lineup like I have been. And just let it take care of itself.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected].