Ben Rices blistering run in spring training has carried over to regular season: Killing the ball

PITTSBURGH — What happened in the Grapefruit League has not stayed in the Grapefruit League, at least for Ben Rice. After spending the spring smoking the ball, Rice has carried that over into the first week of the regular season, drilling the ball at will while making a jump up in the Yankees lineup. Entering Saturday’s game, in which he was batting second in front of Aaron Judge, Rice was tied for first in the major leagues with an average exit velocity of 100 mph — even ahead of Judge’s 99.9 mph.The sample size is still small, but the early returns have been encouraging. “He’s killing the ball,” manager Aaron Boone said before Rice went 1-for-5, scalding a 104.4 mph single and 102.9 mph flyout, in a 10-4 win over the Pirates at PNC Park.

“Just at-bat quality and how hard he’s hitting the ball consistently [has stood out].” Rice finished Saturday batting .320 (8-for-23) with a 1.073 OPS — numbers that could have been even better if Pirates right fielder Andrew McCutchen didn’t rob him of extra bases Friday on a ball laced off the bat at 107.9 mph with the bases loaded. But beyond the results, Rice’s underlying metrics offer hope that his impact at the plate could have some staying power — perhaps not to its current extent, but the Yankees would gladly take some version of it. “I think it’s who he is — I think he’s a real hitter,” Boone said.“I’d even add last year to it.

I know he had some struggles there, but we saw a lot of good in there too.And the ability to hit the ball with authority.

That’s only grown.Obviously with how much he’s grown physically, and just gaining from that experience, I just feel like he’s a high-quality at-bat right now.” Rice arrived in the big leagues last summer with a splash, hitting .294 with four home runs (three in one game against the Red Sox) with a .972 OPS through his first 17 games.

He cooled off from there, though, batting .109 with a .431 OPS and 39 strikeouts over ...