The situation with the Giants is crashing down around Tony Vitello after he called his players out
Former Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello is not off to a good start as the San Francisco Giants’ manager. The Giants have been one of the worst teams in baseball through the first third of the season.
It’s safe to say that former Tennessee Vols baseball coach Tony Vitello is not having a good time with the San Francisco Giants right now.
Vitello, who is in his first season as San Francisco’s manager, has watched the Giants play some bad baseball over the first two months of the season.
San Francisco has been one of the worst teams in MLB, and there’s not much reason for optimism moving forward.
The Giants have scored the fewest runs in MLB so far this season, and their run differential stands at -61. They don’t look like a team playing inspired baseball. The energy is lacking, and the offensive struggles have no end in sight.
To make matters worse, the Giants had to reassign third base coach Hector Borg because he’s been so bad at sending runners from third base — that’s not a move any MLB team anticipates making in season.
Tony Vitello called his team out after another lifeless loss
Things may have hit rock bottom on Saturday after the Giants’ 8-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies when Vitello essentially called his team out for not having enough pride.
“We need to take a little more pride, I think, in how we — it’s ideal to not have last night occur, but [we need to] bounce back,” said Vitello to reporters. “I got the vibe like we were in a position to do that. The first six outs we had at the plate would say that, but getting in a hole makes it a little tougher after that.”
Vitello’s comments came a day after the Giants blew a three-run ninth inning lead to the Rockies in the first game of the series.
The only team in the National League with a worse record than the Giants is the Rockies.
But if the Rockies complete the sweep against the Giants on Sunday, the two teams will flip-flop in the standings and San Francisco will be the new worst team in the National League.
That’s not where Vitello and the Giants were planning to be on June 1.
At this point, you have to wonder what Vitello’s longterm future looks like in San Francisco.
It’s still early, and this isn’t all Vitello’s fault (the Giants’ roster is flawed), but man, it’s been bad so far this season. Vitello was already under the microscope due to not having previous big league experience before landing the job. The poor start is only going to increase the scrutiny.