The rookie also chipped in with a sacrifice fly<\/a> in the sixth inning. He ended up finishing his major league debut 1-for-4 at the plate out of the leadoff spot. And in the field, the Cardinals’ second baseman made a nice play<\/a> up the middle in the eighth inning, showing early signs of success in his transition<\/a> from mostly playing shortstop in the minors. <\/p>\n Other rookies join JJ Wetherholt in making a splash on Opening Day Mar 26, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt (26) hits a solo home run for his first major league hit during his major league debut in the third inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n While Wetherholt undoubtedly put on a show for Cardinals fans in his big league debut, he wasn’t the only rookie to stand out on Opening Day. In fact, New York Mets outfielder Carson Benge<\/a> and Chicago White Sox corner infielder Munetaka Murakami<\/a> also homered on Thursday. Wetherholt, Benge, and Murakami became the first trio of rookies in MLB history to each hit a home run in their first major league game on Opening Day, according to ESPN Insights<\/a> on Twitter\/X. <\/p>\n Elsewhere across the league, Detroit Tigers infielder Kevin McGonigle<\/a> had an extremely memorable major league debut. The 21-year-old went 4-for-5 at the plate with two doubles, two runs scored, and two RBIs in Detroit’s 8-2 win over the San Diego Padres on Thursday. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Justin Crawford also had a pair of singles<\/a> and a run scored in his first taste of big league action. <\/p>\n It feels like a new group of rookies is always making some noise each year lately. And so far, it doesn’t seem like 2026 will be any different. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Cardinals’ top prospect, infielder JJ Wetherholt, was the talk of the town in the baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-645682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/01kmp9ntzjeh0hcmc9zc.jpg\" "\\"St.")
<\/p>\n