KANSAS CITY -- Jac Caglianone’s home debut almost had everything: A standing ovation from the sellout crowd at Kauffman Stadium in his first at-bat. An RBI in that very same at-bat. And even Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and NFL superstar Patrick Mahomes was there, sitting in the Crown Club right behind home plate and firing up the crowd when he was shown on the scoreboard.
The only thing missing was a victory; instead, it was a clunker. The Royals dropped their series opener to the Yankees on Tuesday, 10-2, and have now lost six of their last 10 games.
It’s been a week since Caglianone made his Major League debut across the state in St. Louis, but he spoke before Tuesday’s game about how he was more excited for his home debut than a week ago.
“It’s home,” said Caglianone, the Royals' No. 1 prospect and No. 10 overall per MLB Pipeline. “Hopefully [I’ll] be here for a long time.”
Caglianone was introduced at The K just 321 days ago, when he signed with the Royals after they selected him No. 6 overall in the 2024 Draft. He was here in January, too, for the Royals’ Draft class orientation, an annual offseason program in which the team brings the previous year’s Draft signees to the ballpark to get to know the organization and Kansas City.
In every class the prospects attended that week, Caglianone was sitting in the front row taking notes. On Tuesday, he ran out to right field in front of 30,017 fans, many of whom were already sporting Caglianone’s No. 14 jersey.
Nearly all of them stood up for Caglianone’s first at-bat in the second inning.
“I kind of focused on that for a little bit,” Caglianone said of the ovation. “It was a great feeling to hear them come up like that. It was a really warm welcome. I’m thankful.”
Caglianone said he “made sure to” soak that moment in, but then he had a job to do. The crowd stayed standing as he got down to an 0-2 count against Yankees lefty Max Fried but then laid off two balls in the dirt.
“He knows how to keep guys off balance,” Caglianone said. “He manipulates the ball super well.”
The fifth pitch Caglianone saw was another sinker, this one left up and in, and Caglianone pulled it to the right side of the infield. The groundout resulted in a run for Caglianone’s second career RBI.
“For me, it was no matter what, put the ball in play, keep it on the right side,” Caglianone said. “Thankfully it was as soft as it was so they couldn’t turn a double play. Ideally, I wanted to hit it in the air, just so it’s more of a breather for Vinnie [Pasquantino] at third. But at the end of the day, it worked out.”
The left-on-left matchup against Fried was a tough assignment for Caglianone. He also lined out and grounded out against Fried, who allowed just two runs in seven innings and largely left the Royals' offense quiet and frustrated.
Caglianone recorded a hit in his final at-bat in the ninth, a 110.7 mph single into right field.
Meanwhile, the Yankees flexed their powerful and deep lineup, racking up 16 hits off Royals pitching.
Rookie starter Noah Cameron -- the Royals' No. 5 prospect -- allowed more runs (six) on Tuesday than he had in his previous six starts combined (three). He had allowed his career high in runs -- at that point anyway -- by the third batter of the game, when Aaron Judge obliterated a 94 mph fastball an estimated 469 feet for a two-run homer that landed on top of the Royals Hall of Fame building in left field.
In each of his first six big league starts, Cameron had thrown at least six innings and given up no more than one run -- a historic performance that earned Cameron more opportunities and pushed the Royals to run with a six-man rotation for now.
On Tuesday, he was tagged with six runs in 5 2/3 innings.
Yankees catcher Austin Wells turned a nine-pitch at-bat in the fourth inning into a three-run home run, and after Cameron exited in the sixth inning with a runner on second, Wells’ two-run double turned Tuesday’s game into a blowout.
“Two pitches changed that game a lot,” Cameron said. “Obviously, it sucks. I was the head leader of the loss. But it’s one of those things that was bound to happen eventually, and now let’s just back on the roll.”
The Yankees kept adding on, with four more runs in the sixth inning off reliever Taylor Clarke, who needed 35 pitches to record one out.
“You have to execute,” manager Matt Quatraro said of pitching to the Yankees' lineup. “There are no free outs in there.”