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Yankees Rookie Anthony Volpe Hitting 9th in Opener

The New York Yankees' lineup for Opening Day against the San Francisco Giants is out. Prized rookie Anthony Volpe is playing shortstop and hitting in the nine spot for manager Aaron Boone.
Brady Farkas|
Yankees Rookie Anthony Volpe Hitting 9th in Opener
Yankees Rookie Anthony Volpe Hitting 9th in Opener

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New York Yankees

The New York Yankees are opening up the season this afternoon at 1:05 p.m. ET against the San Francisco Giants and the starting lineup is out. Prized rookie Anthony Volpe is hitting ninth in his Major League debut.

1) DJ Lamahieu, 2B

2) Aaron Judge, RF

3) Anthony Rizzo, 1B

4) Giancarlo Stanton, DH

5) Josh Donaldson, 3B

6) Gleyber Torres, SS

7) Oswaldo Cabrera, LF

8) Lou Trevino, C

9) Anthony Volpe, SS

The interesting takeaways to this lineup are that Cabrera is in the line-up, not Aaron Hicks. Hicks hit just .216 a year ago and hit .194 in 2021. He's also been oft-injured with the Yankees and missed large portions of 2019 and 2021.

The other big takeaway, of course, is Volpe. The Yankees top prospect earned the starting shortstop position over veteran Isiah Kiner-Falefa after a hot spring in which he hit .309 with three home runs and five RBIs. The excitement level around his debut is massive, as the 21-year-old has a chance to lock down the position for a decade or more in the way that Derek Jeter did.

From his MLB.com prospect profile:

"He still has as much pure hitting ability as anyone in the system, but he now has a right-handed stroke geared for loft and produces high exit velocities and power to all fields."

No Yankees lineup discussion is ever complete though without discussing Judge. The big slugger hit an American League record 62 home runs a season ago and signed a nine-year, $360 million contract this offseason. 

What will he do for an encore? We'll find out starting today against the Giants. Logan Webb is on the mound for San Francisco while Gerrit Cole goes for New York. 

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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