SF Giants’ communication issues under Tony Vitello persist in loss to Diamondbacks

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PHOENIX — It wasn’t the first time a Giants starter learned of Tony Vitello’s plan when the first-year manager began to implement it or let it be known to the press.

Tyler Mahle first and foremost blamed himself for not realizing that his workload would be limited in his second start back from the injured list, or where his pitch count stood when the fifth inning began in Monday’s 5-4 loss to the Diamondbacks.

But these are things that shouldn’t require a pitcher to wonder, or even be especially alert.

The Giants, and Vitello, have a pitching coach, an assistant pitching coach and a director of pitching. 

But neither Justin Meccage, nor Christian Wonders, nor Frank Anderson, in addition to Vitello, apparently felt it was necessary to relay to their starting pitcher that he would only have 85 pitches to work with before he took the mound, or that he was 18 away from reaching that limit when the fifth inning began.

“I didn’t know the pitch count, or else I probably would have went about that [last] at-bat differently,” Mahle said. “I thought it was just going to be normal. But I guess I should’ve realized. It was my second start back. It’s not like I was going to throw 100 today.”

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Mahle, however, was left to guess. And with that logic, he determined the best plan of attack against Ketel Marte with two runners already on base and one out in the fifth was to pitch around Arizona’s best hitter.

Marte had nine hits in 16 previous at-bats against Mahle, including three doubles and his third homer against him leading off the game. He added a second walk to his ledger on Mahle’s final five pitches, then came around to score on the bases-clearing double from Geraldo Perdomo that followed off Sam Hentges.

The three-RBI knock put the Giants in a 5-1 hole and they never recovered.

“I didn’t realize I was on a pitch limit of like 85 or whatever, so Ketel was up there and he’s done well against me, so I’m like, I’m not gonna give him anything to hit, and then walked him,” Mahle said. “And then I got taken out.”

For whatever surprise came over Mahle when he saw Vitello emerge from the dugout, it would have paled in comparison to the reaction from Logan Webb if his no-hit bid in Milwaukee had stayed intact much longer. Vitello said he planned to pull his ace, also in his second game back from the injured list, despite Webb’s (light-hearted) insistence that he would have gone all the way to 200 to finish the job.

Wires got crossed in Webb’s next start, resulting in him coming out after 99 pitches and Keaton Winn blowing a save and injuring his elbow in the process, pitching in his third straight game.

Now more than halfway into the first season of his unprecedented endeavor as the first college coach to take over a big-league club, Vitello has been asked a few times lately about lessons he’s learned.

A common theme in his answers has been how rare it is to get the entire team together in one room.

“Everybody’s on a different schedule,” he said the other day. “Getting the team on the same page is one of our responsibilities. I don’t want to say it’s tricky, but it’s definitely different than what it was from my prior experience.”

The issues go both ways: When a group of Giants pitchers decided they were going to protest the team’s Pride Night, Vitello said he had “no idea” that they were planning to write Bible verses on their caps, in violation of MLB’s uniform code, stirring a national controversy that has become a three-week distraction.

And it’s not like Mahle was the only player who didn’t have his head in the game Monday night. Victor Bericoto forgot the count and got caught meandering between first and second base, though there’s not much first base coach Shane Robinson could do about that one.

After all, those were adjectives straight from Rob Manfred that the commissioner used to describe the Giants’ organization under Vitello and their equally green president of baseball operations who hired him straight from the college ranks, Buster Posey.

Remember the qualities Posey said he was looking for in Bob Melvin’s replacement? He wanted a manager who was “obsessive about the details.” Does this look like that?

You don’t even have to look that far into the past to find another example of a player expressing surprise at the manager’s decision to pull him from a ballgame.

Rafael Devers, for one reason or another, didn’t think he was about to be lifted for a pinch-runner in last Sunday’s loss in Miami, despite representing the tying run after reaching to lead off the ninth inning.

The star first baseman (and slow runner) publicly upstaged his rookie manager.

At least Mahle had the grace to put the blame on himself.

“Looking back, it was probably obvious that I wasn’t going to throw more than 15 pitches more than my last start after not starting for a few weeks,” Mahle said. “I didn’t even really think about it. It’s pretty normal to progress by 10, 15 pitches, so I should’ve realized that. And I didn’t realize where my pitch count was in that inning. I guess I did throw a lot in that inning.”

Mahle didn’t exactly do himself any favors when he walked the leadoff batter and gave No. 9 hitter Tommy Troy a two-strike fastball that was hittable enough for him to lift it into right field.

Before the fifth, he had been cruising since allowing a leadoff home run to Marte.

The pocket of the order starting with Perdomo was predetermined to be a target for Hentges, Vitello said, especially given Mahle’s pitch count. He had been stretched out to only 70 in his last start.

“We were gonna go to 85 pitches with him, and I think he landed literally right there on the dot,” Vitello said. “That was the spot we were going to Sam, regardless. If [Mahle] would’ve rolled 1-2-3, he would’ve just started the [next] inning. It didn’t work out. He didn’t throw the ball as well as he did against the Braves.”

Whether or not that feedback was communicated to Mahle, however, was not clear.

And, as he learned, it’s not same to assume on this team.