TORONTO — Ben Rice taketh, Ben Rice giveth.

After his brutal fielding error allowed the Blue Jays to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, the slugging first baseman quickly made up for it with the kind of big swing that has been missing too often of late.

Rice crushed a two-run shot in the top of the 10th before the Yankees held on in the bottom of the frame to stave off the sweep and secure a 4-3 win over the Blue Jays at a sold-out Rogers Centre on Sunday afternoon.

After David Bednar had thrown 1 ²/₃ innings in relief of a terrific Ryan Weathers, Tim Hill entered for the bottom of the 10th and, after allowing the automatic runner to score on a bloop single, nailed down the save for a win the Yankees needed to have.

“Really proud of Ben,” said Weathers, who has pitched to a 0.85 ERA over his past five starts. “Obviously the ninth inning didn’t go how he wanted it to, but staying within the game and putting a big swing on the board for us, that’s huge for him, I think it’s huge for the team. You always love to see stuff like that.”

New York Yankees first baseman Ben Rice (22) celebrates a two-run home run with catcher Ali Sanchez (39) against the Toronto Blue Jays during the tenth inning at Rogers Centre on Sunday, August 16, 2026, in Toronto, Ontario. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It was by no means easy — nothing has been lately for Aaron Boone’s club — but thanks to Rice’s 33rd home run, the Yankees (69-55) picked up a game on the Rays in the division for the first time since Aug. 2, moving within 5 ¹/₂ games of them while cooling off the Blue Jays (61-65), who have surged into the periphery of the third AL wild card.

“Look, this season has tested our character and our resilience and I think we have a lot of that in that room,” Boone said. “It’s games like this that we continue to find ourselves in and we just got to keep fighting and know we’re an incomplete team, but we have a chance to be who we want to be. Love the fight, and a good way into the off day.”

Yankees first baseman Ben Rice catches a pop flyout during the first inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday, August 16, 2026, in Toronto. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP

Weathers delivered one of his best starts of the season to outduel Dylan Cease, throwing 7 ¹/₃ innings of one-run ball, while José Caballero — making an increasingly rare start for the slumping Jazz Chisholm Jr. — provided a spark offensively.

He walked and scored a run in the third inning before putting the Yankees ahead 2-1 on a single in the seventh inning — scoring George Lombard Jr., who had knocked Cease out of the game with a one-out double on his 104th pitch.

Then, with the Yankees clinging to the one-run lead entering the bottom of the ninth, Rice whiffed on a ground ball to first base, allowing the leadoff man to reach.

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Bednar followed by walking Alejandro Kirk before getting the first out on George Springer’s pop-up.

But on an 0-2 pitch to Ernie Clement, Bednar spiked a curveball that got past Ali Sánchez, allowing the runners to move up to second and third.

Two pitches later, Clement hit a sacrifice fly to tie it 2-2.

Rice made no excuse for the error — “Play’s got to be made,” he said — but did not let it linger in his head, instead flushing it so he could come up with one out in the 10th and clobber a pitch from Braydon Fisher into the right field seats.

“Honestly, the way baseball is, you don’t really have any time to think about anything,” Rice said. “Especially you have that tough error and then right away there’s another batter coming up and you got to be ready for that situation. Then we get back on offense, I’m hitting second that inning, you don’t really have time to think about it. So you just got to get ready.”

Rice had hit the ball hard the last few games with nothing to show for it, and then started Sunday 0-for-4 — meaning when he walked to the plate in the 10th, he was in a 10-for-85 skid over his past 23 games.

While he and the Yankees continued to trust that their batted-ball luck would eventually turn — Rice was one of a number of hitters in the lineup that had been stinging the ball lately to no avail — that was becoming harder to live with as the Yankees’ offensive malaise dragged on.

And even still, the Yankees were in a position to win a 2-1 game before Rice’s error gave the Blue Jays life, only for him to respond in a big way with his bat.

“I know no one’s feeling worse at that point than Benny,” Boone said. “To come up there and essentially win the game for us in the 10th was massive. Credit to him. And that’s this game — that’s being a big leaguer, that’s the major league season. You got to handle everything and keep going, and Benny was an example of that today.”