For as often as it is applied with certainty, “Most Valuable Player” can feel uncomfortably inexact. Pitchers are valuable in different ways than hitters. Hitters are more valuable in good times than when they are slumping. Sheer productivity is valuable, but players can help win games in ways statistics obscure. Maybe “Most Valuable” is best explained as “you know it when you see it.”
And in the Yankees’ Game 1 win against the Red Sox on Tuesday night — as on so many nights during the regular season — Ben Rice was the player heaving them over a finish line that was not immediately clear they would cross without him. He went 4-for-5 with two…
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