The Milwaukee Brewers won the World Series on Wednesday, Oct. 28 despite hitting the second-fewest home runs of any team in baseball’s regular season. Out-homering the opponent is a surefire formula for postseason success.
The Brewers did that — more because of a pitching staff that allowed just two home runs in October than a lineup that hit 13. In the World Series, the Brewers met up with a Tampa Bay Rays team whose small-ball offensive approach mirrored their own. The two teams combined to produce only five home runs in the five-game series.
As a result, the postseason leader in home runs was a player whose season ended three weeks ago.
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Ben Rice hit four home runs in five postseason games for the New York Yankees. He needed only two games to reach that total — two in Game 1 of the Yankees’ wild-card series against the Boston Red Sox, and two in Game 2 of the American League Division Series against the Rays.
The Rays eliminated the Yankees in three games, but it didn’t matter for Rice. No other player hit more than three home runs in the entire postseason.
According to Jeremy Frank on Twitter/X, that’s the fewest games played by the outright postseason home runs leader since the best-of-five League Championship Series were first played in 1969.
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Rice’s nine RBIs were tied for the postseason lead with the Brewers’ Jackson Chourio and William Contreras, the World Series MVP.
Rice was a one-man offensive wrecking crew for the Yankees, who learned the hard way that it takes a larger wrecking crew to advance in the postseason. Had he been able to keep going, Rice might have had one of the more epic postseason stat lines in history.
As it was, Rice made history anyway.
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