![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ben-rice-22-new-york-125324138.jpg\")
Ben Rice of the New York Yankees hitting a single. Getty Images<\/p>\nThe hitter with the highest OPS in baseball through the first three weeks of the season started Tuesday on the Yankees bench for the third time in the past five games.<\/p>\n
\u2028And yet, Aaron Boone insists there is a method to what much of the fan base sees as madness in starting Paul Goldschmidt over the red-hot Ben Rice, even after the Yankees said this offseason the young first baseman would get the chance to play against more lefties this year.<\/p>\n
Boone came into this series against the Angels planning to start Rice on Tuesday against lefty Reid Detmers, who has more neutral splits than lefty Yusei Kikuchi, who started Monday\u2019s game. But in the past two games against lefties, Rice proved to be a valuable bat to fire off the bench in important spots, which Boone decided he liked enough to have him in that role again Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just been able to so aggressively use Benny [off the bench],\u201d Boone said before Tuesday\u2019s game. \u201cEven though he\u2019s not in the starting lineup, I view him playing a major [role]. In the last two games he\u2019s sat against a lefty, he\u2019s got [four] 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is going to play against lefties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben Rice of the New York Yankees hitting a single. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Yankees only faced one lefty starter in their first 11 games before seeing four in the six games since. Rice has only started against one lefty (1-for-3 against the Athletics\u2019 Jeffrey Springs) while taking nine more plate appearances against lefty relievers, going 3-for-11 (.273) with a .606 OPS, one walk and five strikeouts against southpaws. Overall, he entered Tuesday leading the majors with a 1.253 OPS while batting .362 with four home runs in 15 games<\/p>\n
Rice was out of Friday\u2019s lineup against Rays lefty Steven Matz, then pinch hit for Goldschmidt in the eighth inning against righty Hunter Bigge and crushed a homer that brought the Yankees within 5-3. Then on Monday, after Goldschmidt started against Kikuchi, Rice pinch hit for Amed Rosario in the fifth inning against righty reliever Shaun Anderson and drew a walk on the way to a three-run rally<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Goldy brings such a powerful presence at the top of the order against lefties, I just want to keep that going as well,\u201d Boone said. \u201cBut having the ability to cherry-pick when I fire Benny Rice in a big spot, I like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2028One way to get Rice and Goldschmidt in the lineup against lefties would be to have Rice catch and have Austin Wells on the bench, but Boone said he is not yet ready to have him play a full game there because he did not start any games behind the plate this spring \u2014 the Yankees wanted him to get as many reps as possible at first base \u2014 and needs to build up that workload still.<\/p>\n
\u2028As he did this spring, Rice has continued to catch occasional bullpen sessions and some live batting practice sessions \u2014 including three innings with Carlos Rod\u00f3n on Monday \u2014 but having him start at catcher is not yet an option.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019ll get there,\u201d Boone said, \u201cbut want to keep the focus on a lot of his first base work as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWant to be smart, too, with how we do it back there and when we do it, just because of how valuable he is and what we see him becoming as an offensive player.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Asked if there was a concern about catching affecting Rice\u2019s offense, Boone acknowledged, \u201cmaybe a little bit,\u201d but also thought he handled it well last season after the Yankees started to mix him in behind the plate in June. The 27-year-old went on to start 26 games at catcher after essentially building up to nine innings in games.<\/p>\n
Rice has said the best way for him to get better at handling left-handed pitching is by actually facing it in games, though the Yankees are trying to balance that with using their best righty bats against lefties \u2014 at least to start games.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because I have been able to use him so much in these games, being early, that\u2019s why I lean this way,\u201d Boone said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hitter with the highest OPS in baseball through the first three weeks of the season started Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35539,48671,20,9,11,10,321,51140,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-197657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-aaron-boone","9":"tag-ben-rice","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-yankees","15":"tag-paul-goldschmidt","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}