Burgeoning Yankee superstar Ben Rice was removed in the fourth inning from Sunday’s game with the Orioles at Yankee Stadium. It was not immediately apparent why Rice, who slugged his 12th home run of the season in the first, exited the game. Paul Goldschmidt entered to replace him.
There was only a small smattering of clues that the YES broadcast could go on following Rice’s removal. Max Fried had made a couple of pickoff throws to Rice in previous innings, one of which appeared to somewhat handcuff
him. Rice went on to take his next at-bat, in which he hit a somewhat-fluky opposite-field double on a pop fly (.040 xBA). It did not seem that Rice was injured on the swing or while running the bases. He scored on Aaron Judge’s subsequent home run.
Needless to say, this is an ominous sign. Rice has been Judge’s stellar co-star in the Yankee order, hitting .343/.455/.759. His 12 home runs are tied with Yordan Alvarez for second place in MLB. He has been one of the key factors behind New York’s stellar run of play over the past few weeks; if he goes down, the Yankees would sorely miss his absence.
This story will be updated as soon as we learn more about why Rice was removed from the game.
