batting<\/a> .362 across his first 47 at-bats of the season, while leading the American League with a .500 on-base percentage, a .745 slugging percentage, a 1.245 OPS, and a 256 OPS+.\u00a0<\/p>\nYet, for some mystifying reason, Yankees manager Aaron Boone sat the developing star in three of the last five games (entering Wednesday night\u2019s matchup with the Los Angeles Angels) in favor of Paul Goldschmidt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boone remains immovable from the maddening analytics that now have a stranglehold on most of baseball, opting to deploy Rice as a bench option rather than giving him a chance to hit left-handed pitching, which the Angels rolled out on Monday and Tuesday night in Yusei Kikuchi and Reid Detmers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays, he came off the bench to hit a solo home run in the eighth inning to cut the Yankees\u2019 deficit to two. He went 1-for-2 on Monday with a run and a walk.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just been able to so aggressively use Benny [as a pinch-hitter],\u201d Boone said. \u201cEven though he\u2019s not in the starting lineup, I view him playing a major role. In the last two games, he sat against a lefty; he\u2019s got at-bats \u2014 homer, walk, single. I\u2019ve been able to kind of fire him at the most important part, and it might be early in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem is Rice\u2019s pinch-hit appearance on Tuesday was in a 7-0 game in which the Yankees were trailing. His sacrifice fly was a consolation prize to spoil Los Angeles\u2019 shutout.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Goldschmidt, who has a reputation for crushing lefties and is the reason why Rice is sitting, went a combined 1-for-5 with a double and a run during the first two games of the series in the Bronx against the Angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Goldy brings such a powerful presence at the top of the order against lefties, I just want to keep that going,\u201d Boone said. \u201cHaving the ability to cherry-pick when I fire Benny Rice in a big spot, I like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more on Ben Rice and the Yankees, visit AMNY.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apr 13, 2026; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees first baseman Ben Rice (22) hits a single…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,92189,1334,127,24642],"class_list":{"0":"post-269819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-ben-rice","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-yankees"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2026-04-14T021359Z_1126465534_MT1USATODAY28723330_RTRMADP_3_MLB-LOS-ANGELES-ANGELS-AT-NEW-YORK-YANKE.jpeg\" "\\"Aaron")
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