{"id":670915,"date":"2026-04-08T21:00:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T21:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/670915\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T21:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T21:00:29","slug":"tony-vitello-addresses-giants-rookie-catchers-hot-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/670915\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Vitello Addresses Giants&#8217; Rookie Catcher&#8217;s Hot Start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269740843_19a79a-e1775678944301.jpg\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" alt=\"San Francisco Giants backup catcher Daniel Susac\"   decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco Giants backup catcher Daniel Susac<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/san-francisco-giants\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Francisco Giants\u2019<\/a> rookie backup catcher, Daniel Susac, continued his hot start in the Giants\u2019 6-0 shutout win over the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/philadelphia-phillies\/\" title=\"Philadelphia Phillies\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"219384\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> on Tuesday, Apr. 7th.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Susac made his first start for the Giants in their 7-2 win over the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/new-york-mets\/\" title=\"Mets\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"219386\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mets<\/a> on Apr. 2, where he reached base in all 4 plate appearances. He then got his second start against the Phillies. Susac gave the Giants offense a jolt as he went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After a single in the 2nd inning, Susac was the first Giant to have 4 hits in his first 4 at-bats since Willie McCovey did so in 1959, according to NBC Sports Bay Area.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Susac is putting up Willie McCovey numbers \ud83e\udd2f <\/p>\n<p>The rookie catcher singled in his next at-bat in the 5th inning to stay a perfect 5-for-5 before finally recording an out in the 7th. But Susac provided much-needed insurance when he hit a two-run triple in the 8th inning to give the Giants a 6-0 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Susac holds a slash line of .857\/ .875\/ 1.143 with a 2.018 OPS through two games.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Susac\u2019s historic start has caught the attention of Manager Tony Vitello, who feels the backup catcher has \u201cearned the right to be out there more often.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Giants acquired Daniel Susac in a trade with the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/minnesota-twins\/\" title=\"Minnesota Twins\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"219385\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Twins<\/a>, who took Susac fourth overall in the 2025 Rule 5 Draft. Susac was then invited to the Giants\u2019 2026 Spring Training, where he impressed with a .350\/ .386\/ .550 line to beat out Eric Haase for the backup catcher position.<\/p>\n<p>Susac is making the most of his opportunity and has 6 hits in 7 at-bats compared to starting catcher, Patrick Bailey\u2019s, 4 hits in 31 at-bats. Furthermore, he has already posted a 0.5 WAR in his two starts compared to Bailey\u2019s -0.4 WAR in 10 starts.<\/p>\n<p>Bailey joined the major league club in 2023 and immediately took over the starting catcher position. Bailey, who is known for his defense, has earned two Gold Glove awards in the past two seasons. But he is a career .227 hitter and is only batting .129 this season, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bailepa01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Baseball Reference<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5891716\" class=\"size-inline wp-image-5891716\" data-lazy-load=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269734818_23ac89.jpg\" alt=\"Daniel Susac has 6 hits in 7 at-bats\" width=\"782\" height=\"521\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5891716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Giants\u2019 rookie catcher, Daniel Susac<\/p>\n<p>Tony Vitello Addresses the Catcher Role Moving Forward<\/p>\n<p>After Daniel Susac\u2019s 3-for-4 night in the Giants\u2019 6-0 win over the Phillies, Giants Manager Tony Vitello addressed whether the backup catcher will get more playing time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think (Susac) has earned the right to, even prior to today, has earned the right to be out there for us more often\u2026 You will see plenty of both (Bailey and Susac) as the season goes on,\u201d Vitello said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Susac\u2019s hot start, Vitello is rolling with his Gold-Glove catcher in the Giants\u2019 series finale game against the Phillies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBailey\u2019s a Gold Glove catcher, and he\u2019s our guy. Susac is becoming our guy too, which is great\u2026 Bailey is very sincerely supporting Susac every time he\u2019s out there, and Susac is doing the same,\u201d Vitello said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/kylehar\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kyle Har<\/a> is a sports reporter focused on the MLB and NFL, covering the San Francisco Giants and San Francisco 49ers for Heavy.com. He has four years of experience as a sports radio producer at KNBR in San Francisco and works as a co-host for their Warriors postgame show, &#8220;Dubs OT,&#8221; and weekly Warriors talk show &#8220;Just Dubs.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/kylehar\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More about Kyle Har<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore Heavy on SF Giants\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty San Francisco Giants backup catcher Daniel Susac The San Francisco Giants\u2019 rookie backup catcher, Daniel Susac, continued&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-670915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-giants","13":"tag-sanfrancisco","14":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-giants","17":"tag-sfgiants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116371104863794262","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}