SAN FRANCISCO — There wasn’t much to glean from Tony Vitello’s first game as a major-league manager. Little in-game strategy goes into a 7-0 loss in the first of 162.

“This is a half-painful, half-easy press conference to do,” Vitello said afterward. “Because it was pretty straight-up.”

While the game got out of hand early, Vitello’s boss saw all he needed a day earlier, when the rookie manager addressed his ballclub heading into their final exhibition. 

“I was able to sit in and listen to Tony’s message yesterday to the team,” president of baseball operations Buster Posey said before Wednesday’s opener. “He’s beyond ready to go.”

The Giants lost to the New York Yankees 7-0. Getty Images

There remain plenty of questions about how this will go, and there weren’t many answers in the Giants’ season-opening loss to the Yankees. How does the former college coach manage a major-league bullpen? How will he pull the strings with an all-right-handed bench? 

So little seemed to matter after the Yankees went up 5-0 in the second inning that the Giants finished MLB’s first game with Automated Ball-Strike challenges with both of theirs still in hand.

“I would have never predicted that we would play the entire game and not use two,” Vitello said. (Only the batter, pitcher or catcher can initiate a challenge, so the manager has little say in the matter.)

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It ended up being the case that Vitello’s actions leading up to his first game in a major-league dugout revealed more about his managerial stylings than anything that took place after Logan Webb fired the first pitch of the MLB season — a strike — at 5:25 p.m. local time.

Posey wasn’t the only one in the room that came away impressed with Vitello’s oratory.

“It was a good speech,” said reliever J.T. Brubaker, who tossed two of the bullpen’s four scoreless innings behind Webb in his club debut.

“He has a special gift,” added third baseman Matt Chapman. “When he talks, people listen.”

Caleb Kilian #45 of the San Francisco Giants pitches against the New York Yankees during the ninth inning on Opening Day at Oracle Park on March 25, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Getty Images

Every manager motivates his team in different ways. Vitello earned a reputation for rousing locker room speeches to his college players at Tennessee.

From Tony La Russa to Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker, Vitello kept getting the same advice as he prepared to make the leap to the majors — stay true to who you are — and apparently took it to heart.

“We’ve probably had 10 times more (team-wide addresses) than we did last year,” reliever Erik Miller said. “For good reason: He’s really good at it. If he has a message, he’s going to drive it home and get it across.”

Before Wednesday’s game, Vitello said he “probably looked soft, getting all emotional yesterday reflecting on players I’ve been around, in particular these guys in the locker room.”

Miller compared Vitello’s message to the team to something out of Bill Belichick’s playbook.

“Just like, ‘Do you job,’” Miller recalled. “I think a lot of it was just creating an image or identity of what he’d like us to do and I think everybody agrees. Maybe having a little more edge.”

A drone pyrotechnic smoke display forms a flag during the national anthem before the MLB Opening Night game between the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees in San Francisco, California, USA, 25 March 2026. AP

“It was really, ‘When you’re in a situation, do it,’” Brubaker added. “That’s the clean version of it, anyway. Do your job, embrace the moment, be there. Just do it. That was the key phrase.”

Short and sweet isn’t exactly a description that fits Vitello, or at least his use of the English language, and Chapman said it’s no exception behind closed doors.

“Sometimes he gets going on a tangent when he doesn’t even know he was expecting to do it,” Chapman said. “It feels like it matters because he doesn’t just say stuff to say stuff. When he talks, there’s meaning behind it.”

If there was ever evidence that a good speech can cure bad baseball, it wasn’t apparent Wednesday night. Vitello said he wished to see a “more competitive effort” from his team.

One takeaway from the loss: Vitello values institutional knowledge. He already has surrounded himself with former managers Bochy, Baker, Ron Washington and Jayce Tingler.

Ron Wotus will also be in the dugout, in uniform, for all home games. The veteran coach has worked under the Giants’ previous five managers and was there by Vitello’s side.

“I don’t think you can learn much, other than he was calm and under control and wants to win, like all of us,” Wotus said. “He did everything he could. The staff did everything they could. It just wasn’t our day.”

Vitello began the day by taking care of some final preparations for his big-league debut. He looked up the umpiring crew, and “it was only for a millisecond but I kind of freaked out,” he said. A Google search told him there would be robot umps. It was talking about ABS.

Vitello gathered his coaching staff for a morning meeting “and asked as many dumb questions as possible.” He got clarification on some rules and the Giants’ best ground-ball pitchers.

In the coaches meeting was a basket full of tempting treats.

Vitello joked before the game that he was already 1-0 for passing up the pastries.

Nevertheless, he ended the day 0-1 as a big-league manager.

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