Giants' Tony Vitello Assigns Blame After Loss to Diamondbacks

Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Giants' Tony Vitello Assigns Blame After Loss to Diamondbacks

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Gavin Groe | Last updated May 20, 2026 11:00 AM ET

The San Francisco Giants have undoubtedly been one of the most disappointing teams in baseball. Giants president Buster Posey made an ambitious offseason move by hiring Tony Vitello, the former University of Tennessee head coach who had no MLB experience, to become the team’s newest manager.

The experiment of promoting a college coach simply has not worked out so far. Nearly every player on a large contract has underperformed, and the Giants own a 20-29 record, the second worst mark in the National League.

That is not ideal for a team that entered the season with a real chance to make the playoffs, and once again it appears the Giants may be sellers at the trade deadline.

San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello (23)© Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Tuesday’s loss against the division rival Arizona Diamondbacks marked a new low. The Giants held a two-run lead entering the bottom of the ninth inning. However, it quickly unraveled as the Diamondbacks scored a run and were threatening with Ketel Marte coming to the plate.

Vitello opted to bring in relief pitcher Matt Gage to face Marte. The Giants had two outs and still held the lead despite two runners on base. Unfortunately for San Francisco, Marte crushed a three-run walk-off home run.

After the game, Vitello took accountability for the decision to bring in Gage and assigned the blame to himself. “It’s on me,” Vitello said, visibly emotional (h/t Bob Nightengale of USA Today).

Giants manager Tony Vitello visibly emotional after the loss, blaming himself for 9th-inning bullpen decision: "It's on me.''
Giants drop to 20-29, 2nd-worst record in the NL. https://t.co/Q10PGeO342
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) May 20, 2026

It is unclear whether going with anyone else would have produced a better outcome or if sticking with Caleb Kilian to get the final out would have been the right move, even though he created the mess.

But clearly Gage was not the answer. Gage does own a 1.86 ERA this year. The problem is that he is a left-hander, and Marte performs much better against southpaws. Marte is a switch hitter and has a career .894 OPS against lefties compared to .780 against righties.

Both numbers are strong, but he clearly fares better from the right side. If losses like this continue to pile up, Vitello may not even make it through the entire season.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: