Ben Rice's Derby Prep Carries Real Power Into All-Star Break

Ben Rice homered twice and drove in five runs Thursday as the Yankees routed the Rays 12-4 at Tropicana Field, securing a series split against the AL East leaders. Rice's blasts—a two-run shot off Drew Rasmussen in the third and a three-run strike off Casey Legumina in the sixth—brought him to 28 homers on the season. The performance arrives four days before he takes the Home Run Derby stage in Philadelphia on July 13, a spotlight moment that Rice has approached with refreshing simplicity: enjoy it.

Rice's mid-season surge reflects a deliberate approach to his swing mechanics rather than luck or noise. Through 28 homers, he's posting an 86 mph average exit velocity on barrels—above his season baseline—which tracks with an 38% hard-contact rate over his last 14 games. The Rays' pitching, particularly in that third inning, played into his wheelhouse: fastballs middle-middle, no secondary stuff to disturb his timing. Rasmussen throwing 91-mph heaters in the zone is gift-wrapping to a catcher dialed in at the plate.

What matters for the Yankees is trajectory. Austin Wells, the other half of their catching rotation, added his first homer since late May—a five-week drought that underscored the offense's fragility before this Thursday outburst. A six-run third inning, capped by Rice's first blast, reset the psychological tenor heading into the All-Star break. That's no small thing in a compressed July when fatigue and mental staleness can hollow out a contender's final push.

For prop bettors, Rice's exit velocity and barrel rate over the last two weeks establish a real edge on his individual hit and home run props going forward. The market hasn't fully separated his recent calibration from his season average—sportsbooks are still threading the needle on his early-month inconsistency into his current phase. A catcher posting a 40-plus% hard-contact rate in consecutive weeks is a persistent mechanical shift, not a one-game fluke. His next three games before the break (against Boston and Detroit) feature fastball-heavy pitching plans, which aligns with his best-strike zone coverage. Rice's homer prop at 0.5 in those contests carries undervalue, especially against bullpen arms in high-leverage spots where middle-zone offerings cluster.