NEW YORK – The home run duo of Yankees first baseman Ben Rice and right fielder Aaron Judge was at it again on Sunday afternoon against the Orioles at Yankees Stadium. Both went yard to give the Yankees the lead after three innings.
However, Rice left the game after the third inning with a left hand contusion, sustained after taking a low throw from pitcher Max Fried on a pickoff attempt in the top of the third. X-rays were negative, and Rice is considered day to day, the team said.
Paul Goldschmidt entered the game at the start of the fourth to take over at first base.
Rice gave New York a 1-0 lead with a first-inning home run off the Orioles' Trey Gibson, making his Major League debut.
After the Orioles tied the score at 1 against left-hander Max Fried, Judge untied it off Gibson with a two-run homer over the left-center-field wall in the third. Judge's 13th home run pulled him into a tie for the MLB lead alongside White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami.
Rice and Judge became the fifth pair of teammates in history with 12-plus homers each through the first 34 games of the season. They joined the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra in 1956, the Braves’ Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron in 1959, the Rockies’ Ellis Burks and Andres Galarraga in 1994 and Cleveland’s Paul Sorrento and Manny Ramirez in 1995.