{"id":681121,"date":"2026-04-22T15:27:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/681121\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T15:27:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:27:36","slug":"tony-vitello-relishes-first-taste-of-sf-giants-dodgers-rivalry-in-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/681121\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Vitello relishes first taste of SF Giants-Dodgers rivalry in win"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Tony Vitello\u2019s<\/a> Tennessee teams never really had a true rival during his eight years with the program.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Those duels couldn\u2019t hold a candle to the Giants\u2019 3-1 win<\/a> over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night, a victory that served as Vitello\u2019s first exposure to the historic rivalry in the regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, that was different,\u201d Vitello said. \u201c\u2026 Willy (Adames), I think he was kind of talking smack to me more than anything about the environment. He\u2019s like, wait until you see this. And, you know, kind of maybe teasing, but also amped up about it\u2019s going to be a different vibe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s often reserved for October baseball.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cBeat L.A.\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s go Dodgers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone kind of filters into their seat a little bit tardy or fashionably late, and then you look up by the time we\u2019re hitting in the bottom of the first and it\u2019s a playoff-type atmosphere,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cAnd you know, it\u2019d be great to drown out the opposing fans, no matter whether they\u2019re Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, whoever. But it also kind of makes it fun when there\u2019s a little splattering of the opponents\u2019 fans in the stadium, because you get some of that back and forth, and it does have a postseason, you know, vibe to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about the feeling of beating the Dodgers for the first time, Vitello responded that the Giants, who are now 10-13, are \u201chunting for wins in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd maybe that\u2019s me speaking selfishly,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cThe gentleman asked me the other day about learning to lose. No matter how good you are, if you\u2019re a champion of the entire world in this thing, there\u2019s a lot of ups and downs, and so for me, you know, I guess I got to get used to that, but you don\u2019t have to like it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes back to the Willie Mays days, the Maury Wills, and all those guys,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThere\u2019s a love, hate, respect sort of thing with the teams, the fan bases. I love coming up to the Bay, and I\u2019ve been on both sides of it. Two very, very loyal fan bases, and it\u2019s great. They always get the best out of us, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Tony Vitello\u2019s Tennessee teams never really had a true rival during his eight years with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,2178,162,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-681121","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-california","10":"tag-giants","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-giants","14":"tag-sanfrancisco","15":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","16":"tag-sf","17":"tag-sf-giants","18":"tag-sfgiants","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116449068766798008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681121","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=681121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}