Tony Vitello praises young players for their contributions in win vs. D-backs
Giants manager Tony Vitello speaks to reporters after San Francisco's 6-4 win against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday at Chase Field.
Tony Vitello praises young players for their contributions in win vs. D-backs originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
You talked, I think when we first got here, about the fact that there have been too many walks in this series.
Yeah.
what did you think of the work that McDonald did in- It was impressive.
And again, you know, a couple times it's been turned into you trying to pull something out of there that maybe isn't there, you know, lack of focus or whatever it might be.
It's just, he's had a couple You, you stack a bunch of reps up, and it's a young guy, maybe slow to correct things in a couple outings.
But for the most part, his first outing up with us, but also last year too, he's been relentless in the strike zone.
And, it really doesn't matter what team you play in this league, everybody's got good enough stuff for the most part, otherwise they wouldn't be at this level.
so it's about letting it work for you in the zone and, he certainly set the tone doing that today.
So there was two errors in the bottom of the eighth, could've been a third one on Cox on that single with Troy.
Just how would you assess how that inning unfolded?
Well, it was just a lot of going fast and a lot of hurry.
Now Barraco does, I don't It just was kind of a chaotic play.
the dude made an incredible catch and left earlier going to his side there.
I mean, he made a outstanding effort at trying to catch it.
From there it was kind of chaos.
But I think the biggest thing was we get a double play ball and just a l- trying to go a little too fast.
you know, if I'm not mistaken, the bat was broken, probably appeared off the bat like it was coming harder than it was.
but for the most part it was just trying to go too fast.
And, you know, in any part of the game, that's not good.
But when it's a part of the game when the crowd's gonna get excited and guys are worried about the scoreboard, then it kind of has a, a bigger effect.
Talked a little bit about, Barraco getting st- a start against a right-hander- Yeah and then covering there.
Possible that he might be close to every day type territory?
I, I think just what he's doing is, is kind of taking the pen out of the manager's hands, so to speak.
I, I We do want to keep those other guys involved, and it's not a great position to be in when you, you pull those two guys for defensive replacement.
But Cox is very unique on the bases or for defense.
There's not really an argument to be had because he's so much faster than everybody else.
but hey, we've already experienced this in Chicago.
If for some reason we give up two runs there, those are guys you love every time they're at the plate because they give you a very competitive AB, they do it with confidence, and they can hit the ball out of the park at any moment, he and Ramos.
but yeah, we want to keep all those guys involved, whether it's base running, defense.
So we'll see how we kind of juggle it a little bit.
If anything, it might be a little bit easier to get Jung Hu a blow every now and then, you know, 'cause he carries a huge load for this team.
Ramos, missed a fair amount of time, so what he's been able to do with the bat, has that exceeded kind of what your realistic expectations were for him?
He looks so good in batting practice and, you know, I can say it in non-abrasive fashion, the coaches were We saw what he looked like on the bases and in the, you know, in the, in the batter's box.
It was like, you know, the sooner the better for him.
So I, I think the rest a- and strength, he I mean, he looks stronger.
However he handled that time off was phenomenal.
and then as he's gotten back into it, I think he's been full steam ahead.
You're not gonna If you have conversations with him about any part of the game, you're not gonna meet a more ambitious guy.
So I think his ambition during that time off is paying off now, even though he didn't have the ideal, you know, at bats.
You're talking about, you know, 30 at bats against Big League arms.
Sorry.
Hard contact isn't something you guys have had a lot of before this series, but a lot of hard contact this series.
What were you seeing from your at bats just as a whole this series?
Yeah, it was I mean, you hate to use the word luck, but a little bit unlucky the first two games with hard contact.
Schmitty was the epitome of that.
We talked about that, but there was other guys as well.
you know, and it carried over in today.
Barraco did hit the homer, but you know, his second best swing of the day was a hard line drive out.
you can't do anything about where the defense is positioned or if they dive and make a play.
Diamondbacks made some great plays during the series.
But you can control over what pitches you're swinging at, and if you get the barrel behind them, and the higher percentage you can do that, the more the percentages are gonna be in your favor to get a hit.
So alls you can do is stay positive when you're doing what you can control well.
Do you see that as a sign of things to come, especially with Coors Field coming up next?
I, you know, it's, it's the same for both teams, you know, is, is the first statement I'd make.
But I just think all things offense have been encouraging for a long time.
That doesn't mean there's not blips on the radar screen.
If our pitchers don't throw strikes, they make life tougher on everyone.
You gotta include that.
but for the most part, more guys are getting healthy.
You get Willie back.
yeah, I think it's encouraging and it's an exciting offense.
Does a win here get the monkey off your back, so to speak, on the- A, a little bit.
I, I think you, you'd have to say yes overall.
But to be honest with you, it's more about our team, a- at least in my opinion, of when, when we play together and we play quality baseball for the most part, we can, we can win some games.
obviously an inning in there wasn't ideal, but we were good enough on offense, and Smitty came in and just You know, if you're gonna use locker room talk, y- you can insert whatever you'd like to.
He, he did what he needed to do there and showed what he's made of.
So, yeah, I, I think it's more about us.
We've had some games against these guys where he just it was uninspiring baseball or we made too many mistakes, and they had confidence against us because of it
