Tony Vitello praises Anthony Molina's poise facing former team in Giants' win
Giants manager Tony Vitello speaks to reporters after San Francisco's 7-3 win over the Atlanta Braves on Monday at Truist Park.
Tony Vitello praises Anthony Molina's poise facing former team in Giants' win originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
So under a good way to start off a road trip.
Yeah, no, I, I mean, there's two ways you can look at really anything, but in particular this road trip, it's-- you're coming back for one game, and you can kinda see it as a, a tough chore to take on or whatever on the negative side.
Or you can flip it and be excited about the way we played in our last game at home and get excited to play against a good team.
And, the young guys I think have brought a lot of energy, and Rafi's kinda helped lead them, but I also think he's kinda feeding off their energy, and he started things with that big swing in the first.
How about Turner there making you, look pretty good?
Yeah, I mean, that's, no specific strategy in there other than we wanna put the ball in play.
And even if we don't, we got Rafi on deck, so we didn't wanna do anything too crazy.
But yeah, I think some of the guys we've been using out of the bullpen, like Seymour and Harris, and then, all those guys have been interchangeable.
Cox, we started today right on right, but we've brought a lot of them off the bench, and they've, they've made all of us look smart.
It's not often you see top to bottom, except for the ninth spot, everybody got on base.
Yeah.
No, and I, I think that's a tribute to Th-that's a stat if I was gonna harp on one.
I know there's so many now.
I feel like on-base percentage at the very least reflects how you're competing, and I think that kinda shows that everybody got here and was into it and wasn't giving up any at-bats.
And you saw some really hard hit outs.
But also, like you mentioned, guys fought their way on base.
I think it was a reflection of how they kinda all were competing together.
You didn't have anybody, cashing anything in.
What about Jonah with that bunt there?
Did you That, that didn't look like it was called.
I think maybe it just made the decision.
Yeah.
No, it's just something we've encouraged him to do more.
I mean, Sife, our sports psych guy, talked to him about it in Boston.
We've kinda mentioned it to him as, you know, if you go- got a gun, you go hunting.
He, and, and he's got a lot of speed, so, the more he can make it a weapon, the more valuable he'll be.
But you saw he can also run the ball out of the park.
So if you start to hurt teams a whole bunch of different ways, he's recently walked a couple times, which he hasn't done a bunch, but you start coming up with this whole list of ways you can hurt the other team, you start to become a pain in the butt, which is a good thing for, you know, you and, and your teammates.
What'd you think of Molina?
I thought he was awesome.
I mean, that's a tough set of circumstances.
And you know you start playing a mental chess match of you know they know you as well as anybody.
But it was strike, strike, strike, strike, and then handled some adversity really well there.
I mean, if you don't have to face Olsen, you don't wanna face Olsen.
And unfortunately, we don't make a play, and, you know, he did a good job o- of maintaining his poise, and even talked about that before the game.
He's, he's got a great smile, good personality, but he is kinda more stoic, and I think that serves him well in that role on the mound.
You've only, you've only got, like, another month or so left in the season.
What do you hope to accomplish for the team heading into next season, a winning attitude?
To, to build on this, the things you saw tonight, I think the energy has been awesome, but it's kinda become a standard lately as opposed to something that's like, "Ah, they, they really brought it today."
If you can do it several times, I don't see why you can't do it the rest of the month of September.
The strike throwing today out of Molina in particular, the composure late in the game.
You showed Smitty, no big deal, couple guys get on base.
And then the variety of ways that we can produce offensively.
I think we're a little one-dimensional early in the year.
That might be on me as much as anybody.
But now we've, we've, you know Even just some at-bats that are really competitive, even if we don't get on base, like Drew's leadoff at-bat, he, he lined out, but I think he saw eight or nine pitches.
We, we hit the long ball.
We had bunting, s- stolen bases, some good battling at the plate, pinch hitters.
So, the diversity on offense that we showed, we, we, we need to repeat that.
You may have talked about this before, but what's the dynamic like with a guy like Devers and then all these younger guys like Jonah- Yeah and Turner just, you know, up and down the lineup there?
I don't mean to speak for him, but I, I think he's having a blast.
I, I think he was that guy.
You know, he came up and was such a good player at such a young age.
He probably has had a little bit of the turn back the clock moment and remember how he wishes, people would've helped him or ways that they did, and now he's kinda paying it forward with those guys.
But I, I, I really feel like he's doing a good job of kinda counseling them a little bit or leading them, but he's also feeding off their energy a little bit and, and matching it.
So however it's working out, he's, he's playing ball that Rafael Devers is used to playing with the bat and the glove when he's out there on defense.
But more than anything, he looks like he's having fun.
And another thing you've probably talked about before, but just knowing where you guys are this season, with the mixing and matching that you can do with the younger guys and the older guys, is that something that, you know, maybe you have the luxury of looking towards next season and say, "Hey, maybe this is what we'll have in the future"?
Yeah.
I, I think it's not like it can't work, but- Yeah at the start of the year, we were chasing wins, and we were leaning on just a core group of guys too much, and you end up y- you know, not mixing in guys enough, resting guys enough, showing different looks to the other team enough.
A- and a little bit of it was the makeup of the roster.
A lot was chasing wins, and then, you know, part of it was, was me maybe needing to learn from things.
But however it works out, it's we need to have the type of weapons that we do next year where we can flip-flop guys and, and do some things.
'Cause people are doing it to our pitchers.
So more than just one way to beat a team is an attractive deal on offense, and right now, guys are showing signs that we could have that.
