Tony Vitello, Blade Tidwell, Drew Cavanaugh break down Giants' loss to Rockies
Tony Vitello and Giants players speak to reporters following San Francisco's 13-7 loss against the Colorado Rockies on Sunday at Oracle Park.
Tony Vitello, Blade Tidwell, Drew Cavanaugh break down Giants' loss to Rockies originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
Tony, you've talked so much, especially recently, about playing cleaner and, more alertly and things.
How, how do you look at today's game, especially with all the walks and some mistakes?
Yeah, it was sloppy.
It was, more I mean, no, no discredit to some of the great work position players.
Rafi starts the game with great base running.
Obviously the more, the highlight was the home run, but for me, with him with that, some of their guys I think are, are really promising athletes, and they had good at-bats, but it, it had more the feel of a, a lower level, a junior college game, as opposed to a big league game with how some of the things transpired.
And I was a JUCO guy, so I'm not disrespecting junior college.
Have you sort of gained a feel for, like, after a loss like this, when's the best time to actually address the team or, or have a message that you say in front of everybody?
Right now.
I mean, people paid money to sit through that, and some, some other people had, you know, wash has gotta sit through that, and so might as well sit through a meeting.
I don't know that anything genius was said, and there's, there's no point in putting on a tirade.
It's not about I mean, it is about today, and it's not about any one person or any one loss, but it's more about a theme, that Susan brought up of, you know, clean baseball is a, that's a touchy subject 'cause that's hard to do, and it's, it's inevitable some of the things that pop up in a game, go unnoticed when you win or you get out of the jam or, or something like that.
But yeah, the one things that, that's unavoidable is usually the team that plays catch is the better team that day, and that includes on defense, making the average play or dominating the average play, and on, on the mound, you're playing catch with the catcher.
On the, the wild pitch, the ball that just got away from Cavanaugh, was that more of Vien just making something happen there, or do you want to see something different happen?
Yeah, I mean, the way I would see it is he kind of gave us a Christmas present.
We didn't unwrap it.
But if you go back and watch it on video, because of where we're positioned, he's already way down the line, and, you know, there's, there, we always talk about there's decisions to be made in a game, where you're gonna go with the ball or you're, or if you're gonna move up.
And the one thing he did do is make the decision right out of the gate with conviction.
So it wasn't in a I wouldn't call it a, a, you know, extraordinary amount of time that it took Cavy to locate the ball.
But when you put everything in a pot, you know.
And, and Brew did a good job of pointing and sprinting to home plate.
But again, as far down li- he was the line, he's a plus runner, long stride, all that good stuff.
He got there in a hurry.
So, it'd been interesting to see how the day goes if we tag a guy out there.
You need to make sure that, you know, that we can't Yeah, I mean, that's one where, you know, you get, get your emotions involved.
So we've had it before.
I don't think my guy's in here to ask about how the at-bats were the, the end of the game.
And if you isolate some of those at-bats, we had a ball to the wall.
You know, there was a base hit in there and some other stuff, but it's an emotional game, and it was a back-and-forth battle for a while.
And when you give up some runs the way we did, and then you give up as many runs as we did, you're not just playing baseball, you're fighting an emotional war there.
I mean, you, you mentioned the sloppy play, but in the past, you've also talked about competitive effort from your guys.
Just how would you assess kind of the competitive effort that you've gotten from them over this home stand?
Yeah, I mean, you know, I thought the Astros was, was quality.
It's a little distant in the memory to try and pick apart anything that was superlative or, you know, something that was lacking.
Day one here was, you know, it was a pretty big punch in the gut, speaking of that, when we give up the home run to Vien.
But the guys were good at the beginning of that game.
Freeland was crafty.
But yesterday was different, and I think today was different, too.
It's, it's a little wild to say, but I, I think, you know, since the trade deadline, kind of been judging things off how are those first two days in Texas versus the last day, and it can't just be about wins and losses.
It's gotta be a little more the feel and the fight to the at-bats and things like that.
And as, you know, as bad as it is, I think, I think, you know, four out of the six games were really good, and I think today was one of those days in that category.
But again, if you don't play catch, then, you know, kind of my example of we could have stopped the, the presser, you know, with that at the, you know, walk in the door and say that and be done with it.
Happened really quick for Blade in that one inning, but it did seem like he kind of found his bearings after that.
How do you kind of assess his day?
I mean, I, I think it, it was, it was good considering it was cut short, and he had a little bit of back tightness.
So, he kind of tricked us a little bit.
I, I think, you know, maybe it was there prior, too, but when it kind of first popped up, we were on it, you know, with the scoreboard and the readings and things like that, and he gets four guys out front for, for pretty quick outs, kind of tricked us there.
So, maybe you'll leave him in for one hit or two long there.
But he was navigating hitters well when he was throwing strikes.
But again, I think you can overcomplicate things a little bit.
It's a daunting task for a guy, young guy coming up, trying to prove himself, both sides hitters at the plate, and it's alm- almost nothing but lefties, and then his buddy in the lineup.
And, you know, I think he was kind of overcooking some of those situations where he was in and out of the zone.
But I think eventually, a little bit of tightness in the back shortened things up.
'Cause we're gonna have to jump, but I gotta get that ball and that's I gotta do everything I can to help the, help the team win, and I gotta get that ball.
Looked like you guys kind of al- also then were a little bit slow in recognizing that the runner was going to third, also kind of compound the frustrations on the play.
Oh, I, I, I was, I was too focused on the runner, he going to the plate.
I thought it was a good bang bang play and it was close, so, so I was focused on that.
Sounds like Tony might have addressed the team after the game.
What was kind of just the gist of his message?
I, I, I haven't, I have not talked with him, so The walks, would you attribute them, to, to the it just seemed like kind of almost, it was almost everybody.
I just gotta get, get the guys in the zone a little more, man.
Put that on me as well, like, I think that I could do a better job getting them in the zone and that's, that's just all I gotta say on that.
Just overall, how do you kind of sum up the day, like today?
Yeah, not what we wanted.
I think we fought really hard in the early innings, but yeah, we, we, we gotta be better.
Sounds like, Blade might have been dealing with some back tightness.
Did you feel like that might have been kind of hampering him a little today?
I, I didn't know about it until he came out, so I, I didn't see a, a difference in his stuff.
Tony was saying that you've been dealing with a little bit of back tightness.
How much do you feel like maybe that affected you today?
I don't think it had any effect on the performance, just something that came up kind of before the game.
How do you evaluate your performance?
Thought I threw the ball pretty .
A lot of walks, and those kill you.
They did a good job with their plan and, I didn't execute mine.
When that happens, does that tend to be mechanical for you, or is it more what's, you know, one pitch?
What, what's it for you?
The three-run homer for sure killed me, but, not being able to make it through the innings and killing our bullpen, that, that hurt me.
I'm sure Sam didn't wanna go in the game in the fifth inning.
Sounds like Tony sort of addressed the team after the game.
What was his message in general?
Just conviction.
Have conviction in everything you do.
You've obviously seen him address teams plenty of times.
How would you kind of, evaluate his, his message, you know, based on kind of your knowledge of him?
I think he did a good job.
Everybody was locked in and, and the guys were nodding their heads and stuff, so I think everybody was on board with what he was saying.
