Rebuilt Giants bullpen thriving early under Tony Vitello, coaching staff

SAN FRANCISCO — Casey Schmitt was wrapping up a long session with reporters after Saturday’s win when he noticed a tall figure emerge at the back of the pack, eager to ask a question. Schmitt smiled. He knew what was coming.“Why don’t you show love to the bullpen after you hit a home run?” reliever J.T. Brubaker asked. “Is it just something you forget about or you’re just not loving us down there?”Schmitt ducked his head and admitted he kept forgetting to point to the bullpen as he rounded second on each of his four homers, but there is certainly no lack of appreciation in the clubhouse. The Giants have yet to get much from the heart of their order, and even after a good weekend, they’re one of just two teams with under 100 runs scored this season. Their rotation might have a new All-Star candidate in Landen Roupp, but Logan Webb has been disappointed with his first month and newcomers Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser have been inconsistent. They are still waiting for their perceived strengths to be strengths. But in the meantime, they have been able to tread water in large part because of a group that was widely viewed as the weakest spot on the roster heading into the season. The bullpen ranks third in the Majors in ERA (2.93), and since April 7, it’s first at 1.51. Over the 4-2 homestand, the group allowed just one earned run in 18 1/3 innings and closed out a pair of close games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the first of those two wins, Erik Miller, the group’s high-leverage lefty, made it clear that the eight men down there are well aware of what’s been said about their potential. “I think a lot of guys are wanting to prove ourselves,” he said. “I know what people say about us back there. It seems to me like we can prove some people wrong. Every guy has their own motivators, but for me, that’s one of my big things.”Miller was part of one of the early stumbles, combining with Keaton Winn — one of the best surprises over the first month — to give up four runs against the New York Mets on April 5. A night later, the Giants gave up four runs in the seventh and lost again. Since then, it’s been the best bullpen in baseball, and while that’s validation for the pitchers themselves, it’s also a bit of a surprise to some in the organization. The front office did not do much to address the pen in the offseason, and this spring, Giants officials talked about how there would be growing pains early on. They figured there was enough arm talent for the team to have a solid bullpen eventually, but also knew that there was enough inexperience that some games would be lost in the first half as roles were figured out. That wasn’t the smoothest way to break in a new manager, who would have to sit at a podium every night and explain his late-game decisions. But thus far, Tony Vitello has proven to be pretty good at decision making. There have been a few bullpen moves you could grumble about from the stands, but he hasn’t been burned often, and some of his more interesting decisions have paid off. In that Phillies series, Vitello used righty Caleb Kilian against Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper and watched him get both dangerous lefties out. In the opener against the Dodgers last week, he called for three consecutive left-handed relievers, saving the ninth for Ryan Walker, who was coming off a blown save. Miller, Ryan Borucki and Matt Gage combined for 2 2/3 scoreless innings. Walker pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, getting the save one batter before he would have had to face Shohei Ohtani, who might have made Vitello regret his aggression with lefties earlier. More often than not, things have worked out for the first-year manager, who said in the spring that he didn’t intend to name a closer and wanted all of his guys to be comfortable with every role. He has used them that way, too. When talking about the bullpen on Monday’s “Giants Talk” podcast, he said the roles still are “pretty blurred.” It doesn’t seem like that will change anytime soon.“We thought we had a really good group down there. Others didn’t,” he said. “We just didn’t know quite where guys would be slotted, and I think we’re still at a point where guys kind of have a little bit of a box you can put them in, but it’s a pretty big box. It’s not defined as only this or that, and they’ve accepted that, which is huge. “Getting acceptance from players when it comes to roles is one of the biggest challenges with coaches, so kudos to those guys with that.”If any of the more experienced relievers are unhappy with how unpredictable things can be, it hasn’t shown. Walker has made it clear he wants to regain the closer title at some point and leads the team with three saves, but he also has pitched as early as the sixth inning in two games this season. Miller has two saves, and Gage, Kilian and Winn have also regularly pitched in the late innings. While this is all new to Vitello, it perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise that bullpen management has been a strength thus far. He was mostly known for his recruiting at Tennessee, but two decades ago, when he was getting his start at Missouri, he was a pitching coach. Missouri head coach Tim Jamieson threw a lot at Vitello early on. Vitello remembers Jamieson holding his hand a bit early on, but by year three as pitching coach, he was running the show.“He kept lengthening the leash with what he let me do with recruiting, and coaching the pitchers, and eventually it came down to making a lot of the decisions in-game,” Vitello said. “We’d consult one another, but he just gave me a (lot of) freedom. There was a lot of trial and error in there and there were mistakes, but you learn from those, and there were some things you’d get right and you’re like, ‘I think this could work in the future.’ It’s been a learning experience here, too.”When making decisions now, Vitello leans heavily on pitching coach Justin Meccage, who had been an assistant and bullpen coach at prior stops. New bullpen coach Jesse Chavez has drawn rave reviews for keeping everyone down there prepared and in the right mindset, and the pitching group is rounded out by Christian Wonders and Frank Anderson, who was with Vitello at Tennessee as his pitching coach.Anderson said Vitello was pretty savvy with his bullpen moves with the Vols, noting that he has always “understood personalities.” There’s one area where the two have had to adjust, though.“There, we had more numbers,” Anderson said. “This has been a little bit different to navigate.”The college season is much shorter, and even at the top programs, there are walk-ons and guys at the end of the bullpen who know their future is in accounting or sales and won’t hesitate to throw 60 pitches in relief if needed. Anderson recalled one such pitcher volunteering to help out five or six days in a row. That’s never the case at the big league level. Vitello used Christian Koss to soak up an inning earlier this year, but he certainly didn’t seem to enjoy it. Meccage has been particularly helpful in that department. “He’s really helped guide Frank and I when it comes to our opinions of, ‘Okay, I get it, this helps us in this game but you’ve got to look four or five games ahead,'” Vitello said. “Sometimes you hear the fans in the stands yelling, ‘It’s time to take this guy out&excl;’ Well, sometimes a guy needs to be out there to piece together the whole week for yourself or even just a whole series.”Vitello hasn’t had to stretch it too much yet, and for that he also thanks his rotation. The bullpen ranks first in ERA since April 7, but also 29th in innings pitched, allowing Vitello to be more aggressive with his moves. At some point, that likely will change, and Vitello will have to tackle new challenges. But he has plenty of help, and not just in the coaches room. The front office has surrounded him with experience, including Bruce Bochy, who said over the weekend that he’s been impressed by the way the bullpen has been handled thus far. Bochy likely will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame next year in part because of his bullpen management, and Vitello has tried to soak in knowledge when he can. “What I like doing is just revisiting game situations with him and getting advice that way,” he said of Bochy.When they’ve discussed managing a bullpen over 162 games, Bochy has made sure to let Vitello know that it can be a slow process. He told him it always takes a month or two to sort out roles, and the Giants still are working through that.The results, though, have come a lot faster than anyone might have expected.Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast

Rebuilt Giants bullpen thriving early under Tony Vitello, coaching staff

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