The New York Yankees lost on Monday night to the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 2 of the ALDS, dropping to a 2-0 deficit in the series, on the brink of elimination.
Through two games, the defense has been horrible, and more worrying is that their offense has been awful. That is, except for Ben Rice. He hit two home runs in Game 2 of the ALDS, the second time he’s had a two-homer game this postseason.
According to Sarah Langs, Rice’s pair of two-homer games for the Yankees made some never-before-seen MLB history. Not once in postseason history has a player ever had two two-HR games in the first four games of a postseason run, until now.
Ben Rice makes impressive MLB postseason history with a pair of 2-HR games
“Ben Rice is the first player in postseason history with two multi-homer games in his team’s first 4 games of a single postseason,” Langs shared.
This statistic from Langs is not cherry-picked, nor is it an overly specific stat that’s incredibly challenging to accomplish.
Rice hitting two home runs in a single game twice through just four games in the playoffs is something no hitter has ever done before.
MORE: How Yankees’ Austin Wells made MLB history not seen in 46 years with base-running blunder
He had a two-homer performance against the Boston Red Sox in the series-opening game, which included a grand slam and six total RBIs for Rice in a fantastic way to begin the playoffs.
While he and the Yankees did not win this second instance, Rice still hit two home runs, this time two solo homers, to become the only player ever in postseason history to have two multi-homer games in the first four games of the postseason.
He has a long way to go if he wants to join the legendary postseason performers, but this is a good way to carve his name into MLB history, even though this record-setting feat came in a loss to go one more defeat from elimination.
