Ben Rice finally heating up at perfect time as Yankees offense readies for postseason

MINNEAPOLIS — With Aaron Judge back in the fold, Ben Rice no longer has the onus on him to be the Yankees leading man.Instead, he has just become their leadoff man, and a dangerous-looking one at that.Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.

Rice has spent the last few weeks looking more like the hitter that did his best Judge impression in the early part of the season, just in time for the stretch run and what the Yankees hope is into the postseason.After going 2-for-3 with a walk — including the go-ahead two-run base hit in the eighth inning — in the Yankees’ series-opening 8-3 win over the Twins, Rice has reached base multiple times in 16 of his last 23 games (since Aug.19), batting .333 with 14 RBIs during that stretch, including home runs in three of his last nine games.Along the way — Aug.

31 to be exact — Rice took over for Trent Grisham as the regular leadoff hitter against righties, a role he looks primed to remain in heading toward October as a strong threat to get on base and add some slug while he’s at it.“I think he went through a stretch there where he really started squaring a lot of balls up,” manager Aaron Boone said before Monday’s game.“And then on the heels of that, the walks started coming into play, where I feel like he’s doing a really good job of controlling the strike zone, which he typically does.

But he goes through some stretches and has this year where that hasn’t been the case.But I feel like right now, he’s doing a really good job of controlling the zone and there’s obviously always that threat of slug in there.“Feel like Benny’s in a good spot right now, hopefully at just the right time to be at his best.”Rice homered in back-to-back games over the weekend against the Mets — one of them a leadoff blast Sunday — to give him 38 on the year, pulling him into a tie with Astros slugger and AL MVP ...