Ben Rice's Costly Mistake Amplifies Yankees' Baserunning Woes in a Season of Struggles - lulu

BOSTON — For a team struggling to score runs all weekend, the Yankees only made matters worse against the Red Sox with some shaky baserunning that cost them again in Sunday’s 2-0 loss.

This time, the culprit was Ben Rice, who was caught breaking too early while trying to steal third in the top of the third inning.

He had singled to right with one out in the third and moved to second on Cody Bellinger’s two-out infield single.

With Jazz Chisholm Jr. at the plate, Rice headed toward third, but before starter Brayan Bello began his pitching motion. Bello whirled, threw behind Rice, to shortstop Trevor Story, who made the easy throw to nail Rice at third to end the inning.

Ben Rice reacts during the Yankees-Red Sox on June 15, 2025.Corey Sipkin for the NY POST

The Yankees have succeeded with double steals during the season — including one Wednesday in Kansas City that Rice started — and Rice thought there was a shot of one Sunday.

“I just kind of sensed that he was falling into a rhythm,’’ Rice said of Bello. “I thought I had a shot to get two guys in scoring position there. But, unfortunately, he got the timing perfect there.”

Aaron Boone didn’t mind the idea, but he didn’t like the execution.

“[Rice] is pretty adept at picking his spots there with two outs,” Boone said. “We’ve got the trail runner [Bellinger] coming, but you’ve got to be more certain than that. That’s a play you can’t get caught like that on a pickoff play there. That one obviously stung us a little bit when we had a little rally going.”

The miscue robbed the Yankees of one of their only chances, as they got just one more runner in scoring position the rest of the day.

Worse, it came a day after Jasson Domínguez made an even worse mistake on the bases in Saturday’s loss, when he lost track of the count and got caught between second and third during a Trent Grisham at-bat.

Domínguez thought Grisham had struck out and was tagged out at third.

Boone again pushed back on the notion that Anthony Volpe erred by getting thrown out attempting to steal third in the 10th inning of Friday’s loss, but in a series in which the Yankees got almost nothing going offensively, each was costly.