ST. LOUIS — Royals top prospect Jac Caglianone went 0-for-5 in his major league debut on Tuesday night, but his presence was enough to help Kansas City overcome a five-run deficit to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 10-7.
“You see him just come in the clubhouse today, and you see what we do out in the field,” Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. said. “That doesn’t kind of just happen by chance. It’s just one of those things where everyone kind of gets excited, and then you go out there and want to do your part and go out there and put up 10 runs.”
Caglianone batted sixth as the Royals’ designated hitter.
He stepped up to the plate for the first time to lead off the second inning to loud cheers from a crowd that featured plenty of Royals fans who ventured across the state to see the sixth overall pick of the 2024 amateur draft’s debut.
“That was awesome,” Caglianone said. “That’s something I’ll definitely remember forever. I can’t really thank the people for coming out like that and showing their support and stuff like that. I’m just grateful for it.”
Caliganone lined a 1-2 pitch from Andre Pallante to the right-center field warning track where Cardinals center fielder Victor Scott II raced 92 feet to make a running catch just steps away from the outfield wall.
Caglianone came close to picking up his first career hit on groundouts to Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado in the fifth and seventh innings, but the 10-time Gold Glove Award winner made off-balance throws on both plays to nail him at first base.
“He was great in the dugout,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “He went up there, attacked. I think it was a bad idea to hit it to those two guys his first two at bats. There’s a really, really good catch in the first at bat, and then anything you hit to Arenado is not really a great idea. But he squared it up. He was ready to go. He looked poised. There will be plenty of hits for him.”
Caglianone was facing Oklahoma State as a member of the Florida Gators in the NCAA baseball tournament at this time a year ago. On Tuesday night, he played in front of 26,656 fans.
“The first time I stepped out onto the field, just wanted to check out the field and stuff, my initial thought was these places really are like, kind of fish bowls,” Caglianone said. “The grandstands just keep going up forever it felt like, but it was nice.”
The 22-year-old Caglianone hit .319 with nine home runs and 43 RBIs in 38 games with Triple-A Omaha after playing the first 12 games of the season with Double-A Northwest Arkansas — living up to the lofty expectations the Royals had when they drafted him.
“We were really excited when he got to us,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo recalled. “What we didn’t know is, how long does it take? You never know how long it’s going to take, and if it took one year or two years, as long as he becomes a good major league player, we’d be fine with it.
“So, there was no real need, coming into this year, to see him up in ’25, but he went out and did what you want players to do.”
Caglianone’s new big league teammates, however, aren’t looking for him to be a hero.
“Where I would caution him is like he’s not a savior to this offense, nor should he think he think he is, nor should anybody think he is because that’s super unfair,” Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino said. “He needs to come into this lineup and be his best self because his best self is what helps us the most, not him trying to do too much or to try to save the offense.”
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.
An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.
The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.
MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.
The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.
Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.
On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.
The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.
Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.
Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.
Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.
The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.
“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”
Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.
The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.