Ethan Brookes showed glimpses of his potential on his Worcestershire debut but the Rapids were second best in the Vitality Blast opener against Yorkshire Vikings and went down by eight wickets at Headingley.
Brookes, in his first innings for the county, played some fine strokes in top-scoring with 42 off just 32 balls.
He added 43 for the seventh wicket with Gareth Roderick before the pair both fell in the same over from Dom Bess.
But, on a used pitch, no-one else reached double figures and some of the Rapids batters may question their shot selection after they were bowled out for 101 in 15.4 overs, with spin accounting for seven of the wickets.
Adam Finch and Josh Cobb picked up a wicket apiece for the Rapids but an unbeaten half century from Adam Lyth saw the Vikings to victory in 11.4 overs.
Worcestershire will now look to bounce back in tomorrow’s home fixture with Lancashire Lightning (5.30pm start).
Worcestershire’s new overseas signing, leg spinner Hayden Walsh, was handed his debut.
There were also first Blast starts for the Rapids for Cobb, Brookes, Tom Taylor and Nathan Smith.
Worcestershire Club Captain, Brett D’Oliveira (0), won the toss and chose to bat and he was bowled by Dom Leech in the first over attempting a scoop shot.
His opening partner, Matthew Waite (3), came down the wicket to spinner Dan Moriarty and was stumped and Cobb (2) was caught at deep mid wicket off the same bowler.
New Rapids vice-captain, Adam Hose (8), found mid wicket off Leech and Taylor (6) went to cut Moriarty and was caught behind.
Brookes in contrast looked in good form from the start, scooping Matthew Revis and reverse sweeping Moriarity for boundaries.
Smith (3) chopped Moriarty onto his stumps before Roderick joined Brookes for the only substantial stand of the innings.
Twenty seven runs came from the 11th and 12th overs with Roderick collecting successive fours off Revis.
The seventh wicket pair added 43 before both fell in the same over from Dom Bess.
Brookes was caught at cover and Roderick (25) fell in the same fashion.
The innings was wrapped up with Walsh (4) caught at long on off Jafer Chohan and Ed Pollock (2) after Adam Finch turned Bess to cover.
When Yorkshire batted, Dawid Malan (25) was caught at short third man by Smith in Finch’s second over.
Yorkshire captain Shan Masood (7) holed out to long off Cobb at 51-2 but Lyth and Joe Root added an unbroken 53 to see the home side to victory.
Worcestershire Head Coach, Alan Richardson, said: “We were never at the races. It was a nice toss to win, and historically batting first at Headingley in T20 cricket is good.
“But we never got going. We never got the tempo of what a T20 game is about. A lot of guys today didn’t execute shots as well as they could.
“We will be better for this performance and learn a lot from it and our campaign won’t be defined by this game.
“Ethan Brookes played fantastic and showed a nice array of shots and he and Gareth Roderick rebuilt the innings a little bit.”
