For Tony Vitello, there will be a lot of firsts during his rookie year as the San Francisco Giants’ manager.
The one he has most waited for happened Monday night in San Diego, a 3-2 victory over the Padres that took the bagel out of his personal win column as an MLB skipper.
With that milestone out of the way, Vitello and San Francisco will try to win a series on Tuesday night.
“It’s hard to comprehend because I’ve got the same disease as every other coach,” Vitello said after absorbing a beer shower from some of his players to celebrate his first victory. “You want the guys to get their credit, but now you’re thinking about a chance to win a series.”
The Giants joined the 2016 Padres as the only teams to get swept in their season-opening series at home and score one or zero runs in the series. They needed 21 innings to score off New York Yankees pitching and made their outs in a hurry during the first two innings Monday night against San Diego right-hander Walker Buehler.
But Harrison Bader homered to start the third inning and San Francisco added two more runs in the fourth. Three runs on six hits won’t exactly prompt comparisons to Murderers’ Row, but it was enough for a much-needed result.
“All in all, a great night,” Vitello said. “I’m honored with all the attention.”
The Giants go for win No. 2 behind ace Logan Webb, who will try to atone for a rough outing last Wednesday during a 7-0 loss to the Yankees. He struck out seven, including Aaron Judge three times, over five innings, but the right-hander also allowed nine hits and seven runs, six of them earned.
Webb is 4-5 with a 3.15 ERA in 17 career games, 16 of them starts, against San Diego.
The Padres counter with German Marquez, making his first start for a team other than the Colorado Rockies. The veteran right-hander was signed early in spring training by San Diego and earned the No. 5 spot in the rotation despite some struggles, logging a 7.16 ERA in Arizona.
Marquez has found a lot of trouble in 20 career starts against San Francisco, going 5-12 with a 7.06 ERA and yielding 18 homers in 102 innings. This will be the 201st start of Marquez’s 11-year MLB career.
The Padres will be aiming to get something going on offense. They have scored only nine runs in four games and were within an out of suffering a shutout Monday night before Jackson Merrill bombed a two-run homer to right.
Facing Detroit’s exceptional starters Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez, as San Diego did in the first two games, will hamper a team’s ability to hit. But the Padres managed only three hits on Monday against four Giants pitchers, none of whom are expected to threaten for the Cy Young Award.
“You could have the best approach in the world against those first two guys and it probably isn’t going to work out more often than not,” said second baseman Jake Cronenworth.
San Diego is batting a feeble .181 and is 5-for-26 with runners in scoring position.
–Field Level Media
