The Yankees took all three games from the Cardinals over the weekend, completing their first sweep since early July against the Mariners. Offense was at the forefront of the successful three-game stretch, the team scoring 24 runs in St. Louis. There were plenty of impressive performances up and down the lineup over the weekend, but none caught the eye more than Ben Rice’s seven RBIs in the middle game, which tied his career-high and earned back-to-back nominations for At-Bat of the Week.
We join Rice
with one out in the fourth and runners on the corners following a pair of one-out singles from José Caballero and Trent Grisham. New York jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first, but Max Fried surrendered five unanswered to put his offense on the back foot. They clawed one back in the third on an Aaron Judge leadoff home run, but still trail at this point, 5-3.
Rice walked and struck out in his first two plate appearances without swinging the bat. He also does the bulk of his damage against fastballs. Considering this combination of pitch preference plus the observed passivity earlier in the game, it makes sense that Sonny Gray would throw a first pitch curveball, looking to pick off the edges of the zone for more called strikes.
Gray achieves just the outcome he was intending, barely nipping the outside black of the strike zone with this curveball for called strike one. The pitch looks like a ball all the way until it reaches the plate, so despite the call going against his favor, it’s still a good take from Rice.
Gray has options after earning the called strike in that spot. The former Yankee can double up on the curveball but throw it just a little lower and hope Rice will chase it after watching the previous one called in the pitcher’s favor. He can try to throw a heater by Rice now that the hitter’s bat is slowed by the speed of the first pitch curveball. Or, he can make a different secondary pitch look like a strike out of the hand and trust the movement to take it out of the hitting zone.
He opts for the latter of the three choices, aiming this changeup down the middle and relying on its movement to fade it to the corner away from Rice. It’s pretty much a perfect pitch and Rice can’t be faulted for whiffing — he just gets beaten by Gray’s execution.
Through no fault of his own, Rice finds himself deep down a well, 0-2. Sometimes, you’re just going to get beat by a starter making his pitches — all you can do is stick to your plan and fight to keep the AB alive. That starts with not chasing out of the zone, something Gray tries to entice out of Rice with this back-foot sweeper.
Good take. You can tell Rice wanted to offer at this pitch, but checks his swing in time at a ball that looked like a strike out of the hand before falling off the table down and in.
Seeing how Rice was tempted by the previous pitch, Gray tries to get him to fully commit by doubling up on the sweeper hoping he can replicate his delivery.
Instead, Gray lawn darts this one into the dirt by Rice’s feet, though it’s worth noting that Rice still started his swing early before managing to hold up.
Gray still has a ball to play with, so I would not have been surprised to see a third straight sweeper in this situation. Instead, Gray chooses to throw the first fastball of the encounter, the catcher setting up inside as the battery look to freeze Rice on a front door sinker for called strike three.
Rice was waiting for this pitch the whole AB and when he finally got it, he sure didn’t miss, sending the 93-mph heater 429 feet into the stands in right-center to restore the Yankees’ lead, 6-5.
Here’s the full AB:
I love Rice’s approach in this AB. It’s an awesome mix of knowing the scouting report, making in-game updates to his plan based on what Gray has shown, and hunting his pitch and not missing when he got it. Gray struggled from first pitch with his sinker command and left quite a few in the heart of the zone through the first three-plus innings. It’s clear from Rice’s take against the curveball, swing against the changeup, and check-swings on the two sweepers for balls that he is hunting something that starts belt high and middle-in. They say that if you’re lucky, you get one mistake to hit per AB — Rice got his one mistake and did maximum damage.
