ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For two innings Thursday afternoon, Ben Rice was not the best home run hitter in the American League East. Junior Caminero had taken that from him in the bottom of the first, a drive to right-center that pushed the Rays slugger to 27 and moved him a step ahead.
The Yankees first baseman answered in the third. He tied Caminero. In the sixth he passed him.
The two men will stand in the same Home Run Derby field Monday in Philadelphia. On Thursday they traded the lead in a game the Yankees won 12-4, and Rice finished the exchange holding something considerably older than a Derby invitation.
What Rice did over four days at Tropicana Field has not been done by a Yankee in the 129 seasons the franchise has existed.
Four homers, one series, no precedent
Rice went 7-for-16 in the four-game set with four home runs and nine RBIs. No Yankee had ever hit four home runs in a single series against Tampa Bay.
He also became the fourth Yankees hitter to reach at least five home runs at Tropicana Field in one season, joining Aaron Judge in 2022 and Alex Rodriguez in 2015. Alfonso Soriano did it in 2003. Each of those three stopped at five.
Thursday supplied the fourth multi-homer game of Rice’s career and his first of 2026. He went 2-for-4 with a walk, scored three times and drove in five, a season high. No other Yankees hitter drove in more than two.
The first came in the third inning off Drew Rasmussen, a two-run shot that barely cleared the right field wall. Rice broke from the box as if the ball were in play. Replay confirmed it. The second, a three-run drive off Casey Legumina in the sixth, needed no review.
The list Rice joined in the sixth inning
Homer No. 28 did something the box score could not show. It moved Rice onto a list of seven Yankees who have reached 28 home runs before the All-Star break, a list assembled over more than a century.
Seven other players in franchise history have done it. Babe Ruth, five times. Aaron Judge, four. Mickey Mantle, twice. Lou Gehrig, Roger Maris, Alex Rodriguez, and Tino Martinez, each once. Rice is the eighth name.
Narrow it to left-handed hitters and the company thins further. Only Maris, who hit 33 before the 1961 break on his way to 61, and Martinez, who hit 28 in 1997, have matched or exceeded what Rice has done from that side of the plate.
Rice is 27. He hit 26 home runs in 138 games last season, a breakout by any measure. He passed that total in July, and the Yankees still have a half-season to play.
A June that nearly buried the story
None of this looked inevitable five weeks ago. Rice hit .196 in June with seven extra-base hits across 102 at-bats. The Yankees offense collapsed around him, and he collapsed with it. The lineup went weeks without a reliable slugger.
July has been a different player entirely. He has five home runs in his last nine games and 11 RBIs in 29 at-bats this month. Asked what changed, Rice pointed at nothing mechanical.
“Just sticking with it overall,” Rice said.
He described a season long enough to guarantee stretches like June, and a clubhouse he leaned on to survive one.
“You’re bound to go through the ups and downs,” Rice said.
His stated method is conviction rather than adjustment. Have an approach, commit to it, wait.
“Be convicted in it and hopefully good things will happen,” Rice said.
What the numbers say about where he ranks
Rice is slashing .275/.366/.590 with 28 home runs, 15 doubles, 65 RBIs and 63 runs through 377 plate appearances.
Across the American League he ranks tied for first in extra-base hits with 45. He is second in home runs, second in runs, second in slugging, second in OPS at .956 and second in wRC+ at 162. He is third in RBIs.
Only Yordan Alvarez, one homer ahead at 29, sits above him on the AL leaderboard. Rice has done this while the Yankees have played 34 games without Judge, who has not appeared since May 31 with a fractured right rib and will be reimaged during the break.
The Yankees are 15-19 in those games. They entered Thursday having lost 15 of 20, the worst mark in baseball since June 18. Rice has been the one bat that held.
Philadelphia, and a lineup that needed him
Rice committed to the Home Run Derby on Tuesday and homered that night. He has gone deep three times in the two games since. Caminero, who finished runner-up to Cal Raleigh a year ago, brings 27 homers and Derby experience to Monday’s field.
Thursday’s 14-hit outburst was the first time the Yankees scored in double digits since June 17. Ryan Yarbrough took the win. Rasmussen absorbed the loss, six runs in 2 1/3 innings after entering with a scoreless record against New York this year.
Rice was not interested in discussing himself afterward. He kept returning to the room.
“It’s big for the morale heading into this last series,” Rice said.
The Yankees play three at Washington before the break. They trail Tampa Bay by four games in the AL East. Rice carries 28 home runs into Philadelphia, a Derby field that includes the man he passed Thursday, and a place on a list that runs from Ruth to Gehrig to Mantle to Maris to Judge.
Half a season remains to decide what the name means, and whether the Yankees can build a postseason race around it.
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