SAN FRANCISCO — In one respect, Tony Vitello, who managed his first big league game on Wednesday, is very similar to all of the Giants fans who watched on Netflix.
Vitello has been wildly successful in his chosen profession, but he said this spring that when it comes to keeping up with his favorite shows on streaming services, he’s reliant on family members. He doesn’t have many subscriptions of his own.
“I just steal passwords from my family,” he said.
Vitello didn’t need one to watch Wednesday’s season opener, and he probably won’t need to log in for a rewatch. His debut in the big leagues was a game the Giants would rather forget.
They lost 7-0 to the New York Yankees, who shocked Logan Webb in the second inning and cruised from there. Vitello was known at Tennessee in part for fiery postgame press conferences, but there was no reason to be too fired up after this one. It was such a thorough dismantling by the Yankees that Vitello had about two hours to fully digest it before sitting down at a podium.
“This is a half-painful, half-easy press conference to do, because it was pretty straight up,” he said. “Whichever phase you pick out, we just weren’t as good as we’re capable of being tonight. And they played well. So it worked out the way that it did.”
Webb’s history says he won’t do that again this year, but there were other areas of concern Wednesday, and those looked more familiar.
The lineup that had the worst OPS against lefties last season managed just two hits off Max Fried, one of them a bloop that was lost in the sun because of the odd start time to the game. The Giants won’t get where they intend to this season if they’re not light-years better against southpaws.
The other big problem was defensive sloppiness, and while that’s been a theme around Oracle Park for most of the past few years, it was still a bit of a surprise. While rolling through the Cactus League, the Giants generally played clean, crisp baseball.
They had just one error Wednesday, but there were several plays that got away from them.
With two on in the second, Jose Caballero hit a liner to left that allowed Giancarlo Stanton to score easily from second. Heliot Ramos double-clutched as he scooped it up and then threw to cutoff man Willy Adames in front of third, which allowed Caballero to break for second. Adames’ throw to second was wide, giving the Yankees two runners in scoring position.
“I think the one that you’d like to have back is the throw into second on the ball down the line,” Vitello said. “You get an out there, maybe it makes a difference.”
An out there would have been the second one of the inning, with the Yankees leading just 1-0. Instead, things snowballed.
The next batter, Ryan McMahon, hit a well-placed chopper up the middle that got just out of the reach of second baseman Luis Arráez.
“He hit it in a good spot,” said Arráez, who reached twice as the leadoff hitter. “Yeah, a good spot. I was playing to pull, and he hit it to the middle.”
A throwing error by Adames gave the Yankees a seventh run in the fifth inning. During that rally, Jazz Chisholm got a running lead off Webb, and Patrick Bailey’s throw down to second bounced away from Adames.
None of this made the difference on a night when the Giants got blown out, but it wasn’t what they expected coming out of camp. Vitello and his new staff are here in part because the previous one couldn’t get the team to play the kind of clean baseball in the second half that president of baseball operations Buster Posey wanted to see.
“We need to play catch better,” Vitello said. “We had a couple opportunities to get outs. Some people might call them routine plays. I don’t know. Again, I’ll go back and watch videos, see how that was. And we needed to do a couple things better.”
It’s just one game, and it also included a slick sliding catch from new center fielder Harrison Bader, who should make the whole outfield much better. Arráez looked comfortable atop the lineup, and Vitello got good work from a bullpen that on paper is by far the weakest unit on the roster.
Better days will be ahead, but because of the disjointed schedule early on, the Giants will have to wait longer than usual to get another crack at Vitello’s first win. They’re off Thursday and will return to Oracle Park on Friday.
The top-scoring lineup from last season again will be on the other side, but Vitello said he’s confident they’ll be more competitive Friday behind No. 2 starter Robbie Ray.
“You’ve got the ultimate grunt master out there,” he said, smiling. “So if anything, you’ll get a verbal reminder, but also a visual that he’s competing.”
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