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BOSTON — After his rapid rise to the majors, Jackson Holliday was given a particularly meaningful number with the Baltimore Orioles.

Baseball’s top-ranked prospect made his big league debut Wednesday night at Fenway Park, starting at second base and batting ninth against the Boston Red Sox. He struck out swinging his first time up and finished 0-for-4 with an RBI groundout in the sixth. The Orioles won 7-5.

The 20-year-old infielder, selected No. 1 overall in the 2022 amateur draft out of high school in Oklahoma, is a son of Matt Holliday, a seven-time All-Star and the 2007 NL batting champion.

“Nervous? I mean, a little bit. Not too bad,” Jackson Holliday said before the game. “I’m not as nervous as I thought I would be. I’m more excited. Kind of changed the mind frame from nervous to excitement. But yeah, I’m really excited.

“I got a taste a little bit during spring training. Obviously, this will be different now during the season, but I felt like I was able to hold my own and definitely looking forward to tonight.”

Holliday will wear No. 7 for Baltimore. His father wore that number during seven seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals and one with the Colorado Rockies. But it hadn’t been worn by a member of the Orioles since former manager Cal Ripken Sr. was still coaching in 1992.

One of his sons, Billy Ripken, was the previous Baltimore player to wear that number, in 1988. The Ripken family, Orioles royalty, gave its blessing to the young Holliday.

“Our family is thrilled that @J_Holliday7 will be wearing dad’s #7,” Hall of Fame shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. posted on the social platform X. “Excited to watch him play!”

Holliday, who turned 20 on Dec. 4, became the second-youngest player in the majors behind Milwaukee outfielder Jackson Chourio, who turned 20 on March 11.

“A guy making his major league debut is always exciting,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “It’s exciting for everyone. It’s going to be fun to watch. I’m excited for the kid, excited for the family. It’s a real, real special day. It’s an overwhelming day for Jackson. I just hope that he relaxes as much as possible.”

A left-handed hitter, Holliday was drafted as a shortstop less than two years ago out of Stillwater High School and advanced through four minor league levels in 2023. He had a tremendous spring training with Baltimore this year, batting .311 with a .354 on-base percentage and .600 slugging percentage in 15 games.

But general manager Mike Elias wanted Holliday to get more playing time at second base and more experience against left-handed pitching. Just before the end of camp, Holliday was sent down. In 10 Triple-A games this season, he hit .333 with a .482 on-base percentage and .595 slugging percentage.

That time in Triple-A paid off, Holliday said.

“Yeah, I think getting at-bats. I got a lot of at-bats because we scored a lot of runs,” he said. “I was able to get pretty comfortable. My swing’s in a good spot, put together a lot of good at-bats versus lefties, which we knew was kind of more of the purpose of being down there. And, it doesn’t hurt to play.”

Primarily a shortstop, Holliday made 33 minor league starts at second base, including eight this season. Gunnar Henderson, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, plays shortstop for the Orioles, so Holliday will get most of his time at second.

He started a 4-6-3 double play to end the second inning Wednesday.

“There’s a lot to process and there’s a lot of hype,” Hyde said. “Hopefully, he can just relax, think confidently and have fun out there.”

That was Holliday’s plan.

“Just to get comfortable. After the first pitch or first groundball or however it is, I think I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m just going to try to hit the fastball back where it came from and go from there.

“It’s different. It’s a lot. I feel like I’ve been born to handle that, and to be here and play baseball for a long time.”

Baltimore selected Holliday’s contract from Triple-A Norfolk. To make room for Holliday on the roster, utilityman Tony Kemp was designated for assignment.

Told of his promotion after his Triple-A game Tuesday night, Holliday phoned home with the news.

“It was a really cool moment to be able to call my dad and tell him to find his way to Boston,” he said.

Matt Holliday batted .299 with 316 home runs and 1,220 RBIs during 15 major league seasons with the Rockies, Athletics, Cardinals and Yankees from 2004-18.

Along with his father, Jackson Holliday was expecting his grandfather Tom Holliday, a longtime college coach; his wife, Chloe; his mother; and his brothers and sister at Fenway Park for his debut.

The youngster hadn’t had time to go through all the texts he’d received wishing him good luck. But there was one from a Maryland native that stood out.

“My dad showed me a text message from [Olympic swimmer] Michael Phelps,” Jackson Holliday said. “So, that was kind of cool.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Giants sell 10% stake to private equity firm

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Giants sell 10% stake to private equity firm

The San Francisco Giants have sold a reported 10% stake in the team to private equity firm Sixth Street.

The team confirmed the deal Tuesday but not the amount of the investment, which was first reported Monday by the New York Times.

Sportico places the value of the franchise and its team-related holdings at $4.2 billion.

Sixth Street’s investment, reportedly approved by Major League Baseball on Monday, will go toward upgrades to Oracle Park and the Giants’ training facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Mission Rock, the team’s real estate development project located across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.

Giants president and CEO Larry Baer called it the “first significant investment in three decades” and said the money would not be spent on players.

“This is not about a stockpile for the next Aaron Judge,” Baer told the New York Times. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”

Sixth Street is the primary owner of National Women’s Soccer League franchise Bay FC. It also has investments in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

“We believe in the future of San Francisco, and our sports franchises like the Giants are critical ambassadors for our city of innovation, showcasing to the world what’s only made possible here,” Sixth Street co-founder and CEO Alan Waxman said in the news release. “We believe in Larry and the leadership team’s vision for this exciting new era, and we’re proud to be partnering with them as they execute the next chapter of San Francisco Giants success.”

Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, Sixth Street has assets totaling $75 billion, according to Front Office Sports.

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Ohtani ‘nervous’ in Tokyo but gets 2 hits, runs

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Ohtani 'nervous' in Tokyo but gets 2 hits, runs

TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.

After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”

Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”

As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.

“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”

The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.

Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.

“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”

Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.

“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freeman was scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.

The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”

For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.

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Cardinals shortstop Winn out with wrist soreness

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Cardinals shortstop Winn out with wrist soreness

JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn was scratched from the lineup for their exhibition game on Tuesday because of soreness in his right wrist.

Winn was replaced by Jose Barrero in the Grapefruit League matchup with the Miami Marlins, with the regular-season opener nine days away. Winn, who was a 2020 second-round draft pick by the Cardinals, emerged as a productive everyday player during his rookie year in 2024. He batted .267 with 15 home runs, 11 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in 150 games and was named as one of three finalists for the National League Gold Glove Award that went to Ezequiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies.

Winn had minor surgery after the season to remove a cyst from his hand. In 14 spring training games, he’s batting .098 (4 for 41) with 12 strikeouts.

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