BASEBALL: Giants' college-to-majors manager faces Yankees in debut

Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees will be the guests Wednesday night as the San Francisco Giants open the Tony Vitello era in a nationally televised interleague 2026 Opening Day matchup.

The lone game on the Opening Day schedule features an All-Star pitching showdown: Yankees left-hander Max Fried against Giants righty Logan Webb.

The clubs will meet on Opening Day for just the second time in four seasons. The last meeting came in March 2023, when Judge hit a first-inning home run off Webb at Yankee Stadium, powering the Yankees to a 5-0 victory.

Judge has recorded at least one hit in all nine of his Opening Day appearances. Of his 14 hits in those games, six were doubles, with the 2023 blast against Webb his only home run. The Northern California native has homered twice in nine career plate appearances against Webb, his teammate on Team USA in the recent World Baseball Classic. He has also struck out three times, including both at-bats following his 2023 opener homer.

Webb will make his fifth straight Opening Day start. The Giants have won two of his previous four openers, including a 6-4 victory last season at Cincinnati, but the Rocklin, Calif., native—just 70 miles north of Judge’s hometown of Linden—has never recorded an Opening Day win. Webb is 1-2 with a 5.50 ERA in three career starts against the Yankees.

This time, Webb will look to make the night memorable for Vitello, who becomes the first major league manager to lead a team without prior professional coaching or playing experience. Vitello, 47, who most recently coached at the University of Tennessee, sought advice from Bay Area coaching legends Steve Kerr and Kyle Shanahan in preparation.

“I don’t know what it is,” Vitello said, “but there’s some sort of synergy where one feeds off the other and it just creates a vibe, and we certainly want to do our part with that.”

Following a .500 season that cost Bob Melvin his job, the Giants will debut in 2026 with new second baseman Luis Arraez and likely a new center fielder, former Yankee Harrison Bader, who battled a sore left hamstring late in spring training.

The Yankees are sticking with most of the core group that reached last season’s American League Division Series before being eliminated by the Toronto Blue Jays. Veterans such as first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who has a .334 batting average, 15 home runs, and 64 RBIs in 84 games at San Francisco, could play a key role.

Fried, coming off a 19-5 season (tops in the majors), owns a 4-1 career record with a 2.68 ERA against the Giants in nine appearances (eight starts). Despite a rocky spring in which he allowed seven runs in 14 1/3 innings, Yankees manager Aaron Boone is confident in his ace.

“He’s one of the game’s really good ones,” Boone said. “It speaks for itself how great he was for us last year. He’s not only an outstanding pitcher, but now one of the leaders in that room and one of the critical people in our group and culture. I’m excited to give him the ball and watch him do his thing.”

—Field Level Media/Reuters