SAN DIEGO — Tony Vitello did his best to hide it.
His hair was wet, but it was tucked neatly into his Giants cap. His torso was covered in beer and condiments and whatever else could be found in a mad rush from his 26 players, but all of that was hidden by a black hoodie. As he answered questions about a 3-2 win, Vitello kept circling back to the contributions of his pitchers.
Vitello did not want this night to be just about him and the magnitude of that first handshake line, but there was no shying away from it. That much was clear as he walked out of the clubhouse and took his spot in front of a backdrop outside the visiting clubhouse at Petco Park.
As Vitello stood there, he was barefoot.
That, like other parts of this night, counted as a first. Vitello remembered the last time he had been put in a shopping cart. It was at Kmart when he was a young boy, which tells you how long ago it was.
He could not remember the last time he did a postgame interview with no shoes on. He never did them, period, until getting to Tennessee nearly a decade ago. Most of those postgame media sessions happened in a batting cage.
“I don’t think you want to go shoeless in that area,” he joked Monday night.
The contents of this postgame beer (and other things) shower probably were not much better, but Vitello had no choice but to soak it all in. He has won everywhere he has been, something that Giants officials bring up often when talking about their leap of faith last October. But for the first time, he is a winner in a big league game.
The Giants took a 3-0 lead early and got six brilliant innings from Landen Roupp. Vitello pushed the right buttons in the seventh and eighth, and because he is the manager of the San Francisco Giants, he had no choice but to stand on the top step of the dugout and get familiar with the phrase “torture” in the ninth inning.
Ryan Walker gave up a two-run blast with two outs in the ninth, but got the final out. Vitello turned and found Frank Anderson, his pitching coach from Tennessee, for a handshake.
“I’ll probably soak it in getting back to the hotel,” he said. “Yeah, it was pretty special looking around the room, whether that’s in the office or the dugout or in the locker room.”
When Vitello got back to the clubhouse, he found that a laundry cart was waiting. It’s a tradition in baseball to take a starting pitcher into the showers after his first win and douse him with anything and everything within reach, and this time it was time to honor the boss.
“That was awesome,” Roupp said. “The first of many. Getting to put him through what I got put through with my first win, that was pretty cool. I don’t know if he liked it or not, but we definitely enjoyed it.”
Vitello smiled as he recounted the whole experience. He liked it, but …
“At some point, I’ll be plotting my revenge,” he said.
“… I’ll be plotting my revenge.”
Tony Vitello’s eyes were stinging after the Giants gave him an “everything shower” for his first MLB win 😂 pic.twitter.com/ml63TSSvJa
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) March 31, 2026
Vitello had hoped to get this out of the way at home, but the Giants scored just one run over their first three games. The manager made notable changes Monday, moving Willy Adames to the leadoff spot and bumping Luis Arráez down to cleanup. He said before the game that he wanted the group to have a fresh start in a fresh city, but the top of the lineup didn’t end up being a factor.
Instead, it was Harrison Bader with a solo blast that sucked some tension out of the dugout. And then Patrick Bailey and Casey Schmitt with back-to-back RBI singles that gave each a batting average in 2026.
Roupp did the rest, shoving for six innings in his first big league game since Aug. 20, 2025. That game also came at Petco Park, and for Roupp it also ended on a cart. He appeared to suffer a major knee injury, but it was only a sprain, allowing him to have a normal offseason and prepare for 33 starts as a full-time member of the rotation.
Bailey said that was as good as Roupp has been in the big leagues. He gave up just two hits and struck out seven while consistently throwing four pitches for strikes.
“Obviously what happened last year was kind of unfortunate, but I came into today and I just wanted to compete,” Roupp said.
Vitello turned to Matt Gage for the seventh and Keaton Winn for the eighth, and both responded. In the ninth, there was nothing he could do but watch.
Walker wriggled out of the jam and the celebration was on. Several players spoke, including Willy Adames and Jerar Encarnacion, who has not seen the field yet this season but said he wanted to make sure to congratulate his manager.
Matt Chapman says a few words after every win, and he started his speech off by listing all of the things the Giants did right in their first win of the year. Then he turned to the manager, the first to go straight from college to a managerial job with no prior professional experience.
Chapman noted that it was an important moment for a man in a unique situation. It’s also now behind the Giants, who hoped to get this out of the way much earlier.
“Now,” Chapman said, “We go.”
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