NEW YORK — Ben Rice had already struck out three times Friday afternoon. The Marlins thought they had him figured out.
Then Ben Rice crushed a 110.9-mph solo homer in the seventh inning and followed it with a two-run double in the eighth. He finished 2-for-5 with three RBIs in the Yankees’ 8-2 home-opening win over Miami.
By the end of the day, the first baseman from Dartmouth had put his name in a place few expected to find it: next to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
The list that stopped Yankees fans in their tracks
With his performance at Yankee Stadium on Friday, Rice became just the fifth player in Yankees history to record at least six extra-base hits, eight RBI and four walks in the first six games of a season, according to NY Yankees Stats. The only others in the Bronx history to achieve this are four legends with plaques in Monument Park, namely Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Paul O’Neill, and Bernie Williams.
Ruth and Gehrig are baseball’s all-time greats. O’Neill and Williams are fan favorites whose names are spoken with reverence in the Bronx. And now Rice, a 363rd-overall draft pick from Dartmouth taken in 2021 for a $125,000 signing bonus, keeps their company.
Only Rice and Gehrig achieved this in their third season.
From late-round pick to Yankees lineup centerpiece
The usual path for a pick that deep in the draft is minor league filler. Maybe a cup of coffee in the majors. Then a career somewhere outside baseball.
Rice rewrote the script. He spent years grinding through the minors, emerged as a prospect in Double-A and Triple-A and broke out with the Yankees in 2025. By wRC+, he ranked as a top-10 hitter in the American League last season, and he did it while dealing with some of the worst batted-ball luck in the league.
J.C. Escarra, who played alongside Rice in the minors in 2024, watched the home opener and said none of this surprised him.
“I’m not surprised at all that he’s doing it here in the big leagues because I saw him in Double-A and Triple-A do it every day,” Escarra said. “It’s a cool story because he didn’t really play much college ball. He was a late draft pick, and for him to become better than all the first-round picks and all the big names, it’s pretty cool.”
Nine hits, all hard: Rice’s contact quality stands alone
Through six games of the 2026 season, Rice has nine hits. Every single one has registered as hard-hit, with an average exit velocity above 95 mph. He sits near the top of the MLB leaderboard in chase rate, as he was a year ago.
His home run Friday came after Marlins reliever Michael Petersen threw him a fastball up in the zone that Rice fouled off with authority. Petersen tried the same pitch again. Bad idea.
Rice hammered it over the wall.
“I would have not thrown him a fastball,” Yankees starter Will Warren said afterward. “I’m glad they did.”
Warren was not done.
“I don’t want to pitch to him,” Warren said. “I’m sure the league doesn’t want to pitch to him either.”
Rice turns early weakness into 2026 strength
Opposing pitchers noticed something entering this season. In 2025, Rice posted a .691 OPS against off-speed pitches. His combined OPS against breaking and off-speed stuff was .750, a number good teams could scheme around.
The scouting report spread fast. Rice entered Friday’s game seeing nearly 15 percent fewer fastballs than a year ago, as pitchers tried to exploit that weakness with off-speed and breaking balls.
Rice adjusted. This season, he posted a 1.351 OPS against non-fastballs. His first homer of 2026 came on an off-speed pitch against the Seattle Mariners. He has been spending extra time in the cage facing breaking balls and off-speed pitches since last offseason.
If that adjustment holds, the rest of the American League has a real problem on its hands.
Boone sees a middle-of-the-order anchor for years to come
Manager Aaron Boone has watched Rice closely since he first came up with the Yankees. What he sees now is not a player on a hot streak. It is a player growing into something more permanent.
“I think Benny can really hit,” Boone said. “I think he’s a middle-of-the-order hitter and is going to be for a long time. Hopefully, that means he’s in those conversations, because he keeps getting better, too, and he’s fun to watch. He’s got a lot of confidence, rightly so.”
Teammate Aaron Judge has noticed the same thing. According to those in the Yankees clubhouse, Judge has been vocal about Rice’s ability to stay locked in no matter what happens in a game. That mental toughness was on display Friday: Rice struck out three times, challenged a pitch he thought was a ball, got rung up on a checked swing, and still came back to change the game late.
“Even when things are going bad, I can always be dangerous,” Rice said.
Yankees go 8-0 when Judge and Rice homer in the same game
Friday’s home run was Rice’s second of the season. Judge hit his third earlier in the game. When those two connect in the same afternoon, the Yankees have never lost.
The Yankees are 8-0 in games where both Judge and Rice homer, dating to July 2024. The combined margin of those eight wins is 80 to 27, according to NY Yankees Stats. Friday’s 8-2 result fit the pattern perfectly.
Rice was demoted to Triple-A in 2024 after a 2-for-40 slump, one of the rougher stretches any Yankees prospect had endured in recent memory. He did not sulk. He overhauled his mechanics during that offseason and came back in 2025 a different hitter.
Escarra watched that transformation from close range. He knew even then that Rice had the mindset to outlast every setback.
“It’s a cool story,” Escarra said.
Through six games of 2026, it keeps getting better.
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