SAN FRANCISCO — Tony Vitello’s Tennessee teams never really had a true rival during his eight years with the program.

Sure, there were some notable names that the Volunteers battled. Vanderbilt was a fellow in-state powerhouse, while LSU competed for the same pool of blue-chip recruits. There was also Arkansas, where Vitello spent four seasons as an assistant.

Those duels couldn’t hold a candle to the Giants’ 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night, a victory that served as Vitello’s first exposure to the historic rivalry in the regular season.

“Now, that was different,” Vitello said. “… Willy (Adames), I think he was kind of talking smack to me more than anything about the environment. He’s like, wait until you see this. And, you know, kind of maybe teasing, but also amped up about it’s going to be a different vibe.”

Vitello got an appetizer of the rivalry during spring training when the Giants played the Dodgers twice during Cactus League play, but those exhibitions in Scottsdale and Glendale paled in comparison to the real deal in San Francisco. As is often the case when these two teams meet, the sellout crowd of 40,066 created an electricity and excitement that’s often reserved for October baseball.

One of the defining moments of the evening unfolded in the top of the fourth inning when right-hander Landen Roupp, who dominated the first three innings, inexplicably lost his command. As Roupp struggled to find the strike zone, the stadium became filled with a cacophony of competing chants of “Beat L.A.” and “Let’s go Dodgers.”

“Everyone kind of filters into their seat a little bit tardy or fashionably late, and then you look up by the time we’re hitting in the bottom of the first and it’s a playoff-type atmosphere,” Vitello said. “And you know, it’d be great to drown out the opposing fans, no matter whether they’re Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, whoever. But it also kind of makes it fun when there’s a little splattering of the opponents’ fans in the stadium, because you get some of that back and forth, and it does have a postseason, you know, vibe to it.”

When asked about the feeling of beating the Dodgers for the first time, Vitello responded that the Giants, who are now 10-13, are “hunting for wins in general.”

“And maybe that’s me speaking selfishly,” Vitello said. “The gentleman asked me the other day about learning to lose. No matter how good you are, if you’re a champion of the entire world in this thing, there’s a lot of ups and downs, and so for me, you know, I guess I got to get used to that, but you don’t have to like it.

“We’ve got as high expectations as anybody out there, you know, whether it be fans or media. But it is early. We are finding ourselves. There’s different ways to get wins than just get a win in the win column, but for confidence and for general sake, you do need to stack wins. Honestly, just trying to hunt as many of those as possible.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who played for both San Francisco and Los Angeles during his playing career, was a little more willing to wax poetic about the rivalry during his pregame availability.

“It goes back to the Willie Mays days, the Maury Wills, and all those guys,” Roberts said. “There’s a love, hate, respect sort of thing with the teams, the fan bases. I love coming up to the Bay, and I’ve been on both sides of it. Two very, very loyal fan bases, and it’s great. They always get the best out of us, and vice versa.”