Someone had to be The Guy for the Yankees with Aaron Judge out for the start of the playoffs, and Ben Rice stepped up and did it.
Rice wrecked the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series, tacking two more homers onto the 41 he hit in the regular season. He showed he can carry this Yankees postseason lineup, Judge or no Judge.
With that Judge uncertainty still ongoing, Rice is the most important hitter in the Bronx Bombers' lineup entering the American League Division Series against the Rays. He's one of the best hitters in the AL, facing the best team in the AL.
And guess what? Rice KILLED the Rays all year.
(Or did he?)
The Rice vs. Rays matchup is one of the most interesting of the Division Series. Let's dive in.
What were Rice's numbers vs. Tampa Bay this season?
In 13 games against the Rays, Rice batted .356 with a .431 on-base percentage, .889 slugging percentage, 1.320 OPS and seven home runs. Facing the Rays was his Home Run Derby-away-from-the-Home Run Derby.
So he's just going to mash them in the ALDS?
Well, it's not so simple as that. And the No. 1 roadblock is: Drew Rasmussen.
Facing the Rays ace, Rice was just 1-for-10 with five strikeouts and a 50% swing-and-miss rate. Hmmm.
Rice did take Rasmussen deep once, but that's a pretty dominant pitching performance against him from a guy he could face twice in a best-of-five Division Series.
But "batter vs. pitcher" stats don't mean THAT much, right?
Right. Rice could definitely tee off against Rasmussen in the ALDS the same way he teed off against the Red Sox. But what we can take away from those regular-season at-bats is how Rasmussen attacked Rice, to get a clue what the Rays' approach might be in the playoffs.
So how did Rasmussen get Rice out?
With a steady diet of cutters and changeups -- and by mostly staying away from his four-seamer (except to go up the ladder with two strikes).
Rasmussen threw Rice cutters 41% of the time -- way higher than his typical cutter usage against left-handed hitters, which was 27% this season.
His next most-thrown pitch to Rice was the changeup at 23%, and only then did he mix in four-seamers, just 15% of the time (six of 39 total pitches to Rice).
Interesting … especially after we saw the way Rice hit against Boston. More on that in a sec.
Is Rasmussen's approach representative of how the Rays pitching staff went after Rice as a whole?
Yes. The Rays did not want to throw Rice a lot of straight fastballs. Their right-handed pitchers, led by Rasmussen but not just Rasmussen, threw him mainly changeups (25%) and cutters (21%). Their lefties threw Rice mostly changeups (24%) and sweepers (24%). You might notice that that's a lot of lefty-lefty changeups -- same-sided changeups are a rare pitch. But that doesn't bother the Rays if the changeup is the best pitch to get a certain hitter out.
Meanwhile, Tampa Bay only threw Rice 18% four-seamers. The Rays even threw him more sinkers (36 total) than they did four-seamers (33 total).
To sum up that strategy, it was basically: attack Rice with changeups, cutters/sweepers (depending on whether it was a right-handed or left-handed pitcher) and sinkers.
Why would they pitch him that way?
Because Rice absolutely hammers four-seamers. He's hammered them all season. That was one of the things that stood out the most about his Wild Card Series performance.
Rice is the single best four-seam fastball hitter in the Majors this year. Between the regular season and playoffs, he's batting .347 and slugging an MLB-best .855 against them, with 17 home runs.
Highest batting value vs. 4-seamers this season
1. Ben Rice: +25 runs created
2. Bryce Harper: +23 runs created
3-T. Pete Crow-Armstrong: +20 runs created
3-T. Bryce Eldridge: +20 runs created
5-T. Yordan Alvarez: +18 runs created
5-T. Kazuma Okamoto: +18 runs created
So it makes a ton sense that the savvy Rays would want to throw him junkballs instead of fastballs.
Tampa Bay's sinkers to Rice outnumbering their four-seamers makes basic sense, too. Rice's run value vs. sinkers in the regular season was minus-2, so his results against them were a small net negative for the Yankees.
Is that the Rays pitching to their own strengths, or to Rice's weaknesses?
Both. The Rays pitching staff was already throwing fewer four-seamers than most MLB teams. So it's not like they changed their approach just because of the damage Rice can do against heaters.
Tampa Bay threw four-seamers just under 28% of the time this season, bottom-10 in the Majors and bottom-three in the American League (only the Red Sox and Royals threw fewer).
And the changeup -- the pitch the Rays threw to Rice the most -- is Tampa Bay's signature pitch. The Rays threw by far the most changeups of any team this season, with 21% usage. Pitchers like Rasmussen, All-Star closer Bryan Baker, Nick Martinez, Griffin Jax and Ian Seymour threw changeups by the hundreds.
Rice is not a bad changeup hitter, either. He generally hits cutters pretty well, too. He's just a really elite four-seam fastball hitter.
That's a lot of changeup specialists. But what about "Fastball Freddy" Peralta?
You might think the one chance Rice will have in the ALDS to take a bunch of rips at heaters is whenever the Rays face Freddy Peralta. He's nicknamed "Fastball Freddy" for a reason, after all -- Peralta has relied on his four-seamer for years.
But wait a minute. Since the Rays traded for Peralta at this year's Deadline … they've even got him throwing more changeups. Peralta's changeup usage vs. lefties before he got to the Rays was just under 24%. With the Rays, it's up to 34%.
Lucky for Rice, Freddy hasn't abandoned the fastball, though. He's still throwing right around 50% four-seamers to lefty sluggers in Tampa Bay.
So there's some good news for Rice after all.
Yep. And it's not just that.
While Rice might have struggled against Rasmussen and all those cutters and changeups (except the one cutter he homered against), he had plenty of success against other Rays pitchers, even ones using a similar approach.
Rice smacked around Martinez, Seymour and Peralta (when he was still on the Mets), including a homer off Peralta's changeup and Seymour's sinker, a double off Martinez's changeup and base hits off Martinez's righty-lefty cutter and Seymour's lefty-lefty sweeper.
In other words, Rice has shown he can handle the Rays' arsenals -- he just needs to actually do it against Rasmussen (and Griffin Jax to a lesser extent).
Any other good signs for Rice?
Sure. If the Rays try to go after him with sinkers over four-seamers … he just needs to keep doing what he was doing in the Wild Card Series.
Both of Rice's home runs in Game 1 against the Red Sox were off sinkers -- and upper-90s sinkers, too. He hit his first one lefty-lefty off a 97 mph sinker from Erik Miller, and his second one off another 97 mph sinker from righty Brayan Bello.
And it's not like you can throw Rice zero four-seamers in a whole series. Then, when he does get his chance, he's going to rip them -- like the 110 mph double he ripped off a 99 mph four-seamer at the top of the zone from Red Sox ace Payton Tolle.
What else?
Rice should have a much better platoon situation than he did in the Wild Card Series.
The Red Sox were a historically lefty-heavy pitching staff. The Rays have a lot more righties. (Consider this: Over 70% of Tampa Bay's pitches were thrown by right-handers this season; barely 40% of Boston's were thrown by righties.)
So Rice should start his at-bats with the advantage more often -- and he has a .970 OPS vs. righties this season, sixth-best in the Majors behind only Yordan Alvarez, Rafael Devers, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto and Nick Kurtz.
The Rays will probably try to use their changeups as the equalizer -- for a right-handed pitcher facing a lefty hitter, offspeed stuff can be the go-to choice -- but Rice is a dangerous enough hitter to overpower that.
Plus, even when he does face a lefty, Rice is a fine lefty-lefty hitter in his own right. He has an .803 OPS in lefty-lefty matchups this season after rapping three hits off good Red Sox lefties in the Wild Card round -- his homer off Miller, his double off Tolle and a single off Alec Gamboa.
Rice has become a superstar-level hitter. The Rays can't change that, no matter how smart their plan against him. Rice and the Rays have seen a lot of each other, and both teams have to know that his at-bats could swing the Division Series.