{"id":696037,"date":"2026-06-10T17:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T17:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696037\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T17:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T17:35:09","slug":"red-sox-legend-pedro-martinez-endorses-yankees-star-as-al-mvp-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696037\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Legend Pedro Martinez Endorses Yankees Star As AL MVP ‘Threat’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Sox Legend Pedro Martinez Endorses Yankees Star As AL MVP ‘Threat’<\/a> originally appeared on NESN<\/a>. Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pedro Martinez<\/a> paid respect to a Boston Red Sox<\/a> rival enjoying a breakout season.<\/p>\n

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TBS broadcast the New York Yankees<\/a>‘ 3-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> on Tuesday night. Before the game, Martinez praised<\/a> first baseman Ben Rice<\/a> as a top candidate for the American League MVP award.<\/p>\n

“After watching Ben Rice closely, I’ve said it before: he might be Aaron Judge<\/a>‘s biggest threat in the MVP race,” Martinez said.<\/p>\n

Sidelined indefinitely<\/a> with a stress fracture, Judge almost certainly won’t retain his MVP crown for the third straight season. However, the honor could stay with the Yankees.<\/p>\n

Rice is off to a torrid start, batting .297\/.392\/.626 with 18 home runs. The Massachusetts native last went yard in Friday’s 5-3 loss to the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

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The 27-year-old has helped the Yankees register an AL-leading .762 team OPS. They’ll need Rice to fill the massive void of Judge’s absence while competing with the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> for control of the division.<\/p>\n

While Rice is swinging a scorching bat, he has plenty of competition in the AL MVP race.<\/p>\n

Rice ranks second in OPS to Yordan Alvarez<\/a>, who’s batting a blistering .318\/.432\/.642 with 22 home runs. If voters were to overlook defense in favor of the best slugger, it’d make sense to choose the Houston Astros<\/a> star instead.<\/p>\n

His .277\/.352\/.451 slash line isn’t MVP-caliber, but Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a> still leads MLB with 3.7 fWAR<\/a> on the strength of his glove. The red-hot Nick Kurtz<\/a> is also working his way into the conversation with a .969 OPS.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox will see Rice and the Yankees again for a four-game series at Fenway Park in two weeks.<\/p>\n

More MLB:\u00a0Chad Tracy Reveals Why Marcelo Mayer Was Scratched From Red Sox Lineup<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Sox Legend Pedro Martinez Endorses Yankees Star As AL MVP ‘Threat’ originally appeared on NESN. Add NESN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[4260,301592,27449,12949,374,2320,373,363,369,30929,79994,99,974,30936],"class_list":["post-696037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aaron-judge","tag-american-league-mvp","tag-ben-rice","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-nick-kurtz","tag-pedro-martinez","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-yordan-alvarez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}