Alexander Wilson
The Yankees have had a miserable enough week that a Home Run Derby story somehow feels like oxygen.
Ben Rice is headed to his first Derby, and his father, Dan Rice, will pitch to him in Philadelphia. The clean part is the timing, a father-son baseball moment arriving while the big-league club is busy punching itself in the face every other inning.
Rice also gave the Yankees another reason to enjoy it Tuesday, launching his 26th homer in the loss to Tampa Bay. He is sitting on a .267/.360/.565 slash line with a 154 wRC+, so the invite is not some cute side note. He belongs there.
Yankees could use the Rice break
The Derby always makes people nervous. Someone will complain about messing with the bat path, someone else will bring up fatigue, and by the second round half the internet will be doing fake hitting-coach theater.
I get the concern, but Rice is not some fragile side project. He has been carrying real weight with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton out, and the Yankees need him to keep acting like a middle-of-the-order force. If anything, the Derby gives him a chance to breathe in a fun environment instead of spending the entire break hearing about a team-wide skid.
Aaron Boone did not sound worried about the format, either. The event is no longer a clock race, which should make the workload less frantic. Rice can take his cuts, enjoy the night with his dad, and come back with the same job he already had.
Ben Rice is no longer Yankees background noise
Rice is the rare Yankees bright spot that does not need a warning label attached to every sentence. He is an All-Star, a Derby bat, and one of the few hitters giving this lineup real damage while the bigger names heal.
The second half will be harder. Pitchers will keep adjusting, and the Yankees will need Rice to answer without Judge protecting every inning. Still, if you are looking for one fun thing in this mess, Rice getting center stage with his father throwing to him is a pretty easy place to start.
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