WASHINGTON — Anthony Volpe will have so many friends and family in attendance on Thursday at Yankee Stadium that he joked he will be losing money on the game.

But amid all the hype, undeniable buzz and off-field hoopla that will come with Volpe’s first Opening Day and MLB debut, the Yankees’ 21-year-old shortstop is looking forward to one thing in particular.

“Just playing. Just playing,” he said Tuesday after a final exhibition at Nationals Park in which he put an exclamation point on his spring.

“That’s the beauty of any Opening Day: It’s the start of a new season and the start of hopefully something great.”

The Yankees hope that is the case, both for their team in general and for their homegrown prospect from New Jersey who will be the first rookie in their Opening Day lineup since Aaron Judge in 2017.

Six years later, Judge is excited to see Volpe in the lineup — both for the shortstop and for what it means for the Yankees.

“The organization believing in a young guy like Volpe — we got quite a few other young guys that are probably gonna help us win a lot of ballgames down the road — as a player, that just gets you excited,” Judge said.

“Knowing that, hey, the organization wants the best product on the field no matter the age or who they are, that excites you as a player.”

Given the spring that Volpe put together to win the shortstop competition, the expectations for him are sky-high entering the season.

He did little to temper them Tuesday, when he made a pair of stellar defensive plays — on one diving to stop a ground ball up the middle and firing to first to throw out the speedy CJ Abrams, and on the other diving to his right to snag a line drive from Luis Garcia.

“Wow, both of them,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I was saying to [bench coach Carlos Mendoza] later, ‘I was going to say that second one, I didn’t think [he was getting to], but the first one’ — they’re both pretty special plays.

“I want to peek and see what percent chances those plays were because they were both special.”

Continuing to wear No. 77 as he did all spring (he said he was close to finalizing his number for the regular season, but did not disclose his choice), Volpe also went 1-for-2 from the nine-hole, where he is expected to bat in Boone’s lineup to begin the season.

Volpe had not been tested defensively in camp to the extent that he was Tuesday, but he impressed Yankees veterans and coaches alike with his all-around game.

His work off the field stood out, too. He was typically one of the first Yankees to arrive to the clubhouse in the morning and could often be found on a backfield working on his defense.

“His preparation is elite,” Gerrit Cole said. “His talent is elite. He’s a really good person. I’m just starting to get to know him as the team comes together to start the regular season. But watching him from afar, he looks like he has a lot of the characteristics of other great players that I’ve watched over the years.”

That preparation has been underway for years, but it hit another gear in December, when Volpe arrived early at the Yankees’ player development complex to give himself the best chance to win the shortstop job.

Now it will begin to come to fruition on Thursday afternoon in The Bronx.

“You wouldn’t know he was 21,” Judge said. “If I saw that kid playing and he told me he was a 27-year-old guy we just traded for, I’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, looks like he’s got some experience.’ His demeanor, his calmness, it’s fun to see and fun to have that in the lineup.”