About Last Night: Yanks Crush The Red Sox, 14-4

By Andy Singer

July 7th, 2024

The Big Story

What a game. The Yankees have been almost unwatchable for the last month, and it hasn't gotten any better over the last few days...until yesterday afternoon, that is. The Yankees moved Ben Rice up to the leadoff spot a few days ago, not because he's a prototypical leadoff hitter, but because he's been one of the only productive bats in the lineup aside from Judge, Soto, and Wells. Many have complained about Rice's placement at the top of the order, and while it's true that he doesn't possess speed nor a prototypical contact-heavy profile traditionalists prefer from a leadoff hitter, it's impossible to argue against yesterday's results. If you didn't know who Ben Rice was before, you sure know who he is now.

To lead-off the Yankees' half of the first inning, Rice worked a 6-pitch at-bat that culminated in a long solo shot off of Josh Winckowski to give the Yanks a 1-0 lead. Quite simply, it set the tone for what was an incredible day for both Rice and the Yankees.

While Gerrit Cole showed some promising signs, generating 8 strikeouts in 4.1 innings, he also struggled to keep runners off of the bases and left the game with a 4-3 deficit. On his final pitch, Cole allowed a long solo shot to Rafael Devers, and Devers slammed the bat, slow trotted around the bases, and appeared to gesture at Alex Verdugo in LF. I would imagine it was in response to Verdugo's slow trot on his two-run homer in the third inning, but in any case it made Devers look ridiculous. I'm not sure whether Cole was angrier at Devers' antics or knowing that Boone was going to come out to get him off the mound.

In an uncharacteristic show of guts, the bullpen was nearly perfect for the next 4.2 innings. Tim Hill relieved Cole to stop the bleeding, and kept the Sox off-balance with his submarine delivery for 2.2 innings. Josh Maciejewski was legitimately impressive thereafter, with 4 strikeouts in 2 innings...I'm beginning to understand what the Yankees see in him.

The real story though was what happened in the bottom of the 5th inning, just a half inning after Devers' showboating. The Yanks produced a 7-run 5th inning through patience, working counts, displaying the timely hitting that has eluded them these last 3+ weeks, and showing power when it counted. The Yanks batted around in the inning, with Soto grounding out to lead off and finished the inning with a strikeout. The best stuff happened in-between. Judge and Verdugo got on with 1-out singles, with Verdugo showing grit and hustle with a bunt single. Volpe hit a ground rule double to CF to score the first run of the inning to tie the game (though it looked to me like the CF took an awful route to a catchable ball, sometimes you need a little luck). The Yanks played some small-ball after Volpe's hit, as Grisham was intentionally walked, while Wells drew an impressive 8-pitch walk while fouling off 3 pitches. Oswaldo Cabrera hit a sac fly, while DJLM singled. Right there, it was a 4-run inning, which would have been enough to keep me happy, but Ben Rice had other ideas. Rice slammed a 2nd pitch change-up from Chase Anderson deep into the right field seats for a 3-run shot to put the cherry on top.

The wind was completely out of the Red Sox's sails at that point, but Rice wasn't done yet. After a LeMahieu RBI single in the 7th inning, Rice hit a 3rd homer, another 3-run shot off of a Chase Anderson cutter to right-center to put the Yanks ahead 14-4. The rookie rightly got to make his curtain call after the homer, and produced the most memorable day a Yankee 1B has produced since Greg Bird's huge homer in the 2017 playoffs.

Notable Performances

Gerrit Cole - 4.1 IP, 7 H, 2 BB, 4 ER, 8 K

Ben Rice - 3-5, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 1 K

Aaron Judge - 2-5, 2 R

Alex Verdugo - 2-5, 2 R, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 K

Trent Grisham - 1-4, 2 R, 1 BB, 1 2B, 1 K

Oswaldo Cabrera - 2-2, 1 R, 1 RBI

DJ LeMahieu - 2-3, 2 R, 2 RBI, 1 BB

Bullpen - 4.2, 1 H, 0 BB, 5 K

Better To Forget

Juan Soto - 0-5, 1 K on an "Automatic Strikeout..." that's happened more than once now.

My Take

The Yankees needed a game like this. Their starter, again, struggled through a short start and rather than throwing in the towel, the team dug deep to grind out at-bats and score some runs. Small-ball and homer bonanzas can live side-by-side, and the Yankees showed that yesterday.

Ben Rice started to make a believer out of me when I saw him in Somerset at the end of last season. I was prepared to write him off, but after watching him play, I saw athleticism, real raw power, and a feel for contact despite some need to clean up his mechanics. His swing is quieter this year, and it's paying dividends. I would argue that he's been taking the best ABs on the team in the last week. Now, he has a huge, signature game to show for it. He needs to do it for a bit longer, but I think Anthony Rizzo has officially been Wally Pipp'ed.

Gerrit Cole wasn't great again, but his stuff was more than enough to get outs in bunches, and he did strikeout 8 batters. I am hoping the extreme heat and humidity got to him occasionally, as location was an issue yesterday. Cole has had that problem before, though, and it's fixable. At least I'm not talking about his elbow this time.

Anthony Volpe doubled, but that was more luck than being good, as the CF took a bad route. He looks lost at the plate, with a broken swing. For all of the attention Aaron Judge's personal coach gets for what he's done with Judge, Volpe has implemented many of the same mechanical tactics, and they absolutely don't work for him, and I said it in Spring Training. Even on a good day, I'm worried about the kid.

It's nice to finally write about a Yankee win, particularly one this good.

Looking To Tomorrow

The Yanks look to win the series on Sunday night at 7:10 PM. Luis Gil will look to right the ship against Kutter Crawford.