SF Giants analyst is completely fed up with team’s ineptitude after another loss

It feels like we’ve seen this one before. Maybe it’s because we have. The SF Giants blew another game on Monday night thanks to a bullpen implosion. Fans are pretty clearly fed up and so is analyst and former Giants pitcher Shawn Estes who did not hold back after the game.

Estes was part of NBC Sports Bay Area’s postgame wrap-up team alongside host Kylen Mills and he made it very clear that he felt Monday’s loss was on manager Tony Vitello:

“Keaton Winn’s gonna get a lot of blame for this game and he shouldn’t… he just got done pitching 24 hours ago in Chicago, getting in at 4 AM throwing 19 pitches. The day before that he threw 22 pitches…the guy’s arm is tired and you could tell in the ninth inning based on the mistakes he was making.”

Winn blew the save in the ninth on Monday just two days after he blew a save against the Cubs in Chicago. He entered the ninth inning on Monday with a two-run lead and by the end of the inning the Washington Nationals were up 4-3. 

Estes did not call out Vitello by name, but he went on to say that he believed Logan Webb should have been on the mound to start the ninth. Webb had pitched eight nearly flawless innings and was at 99 pitches. According to Webb after the game he was fine with Vitello’s decision to take him out but he certainly wouldn’t have refused if Vitello told him he needed one more out of him.

Vitello defended his decision by saying, “Obviously with Keaton he's got experience with it going his way and not going his way." It’s true that after Winn blew Saturday’s game in Chicago he went back out on Sunday and redeemed himself with a scoreless outing to send the game to extra innings and the Giants went on to win.

But to go with a guy who was pretty clearly gassed just doesn’t make sense. Why not have Winn and Dylan Smith both ready to go in the bullpen while allowing Webb to start the ninth? Maybe Webb at least gets an out to take a little pressure off a taxed bullpen.

Vitello is not solely to blame for yet another SF Giants bullpen collapse

Of course, to put all the blame on Vitello is unfair. These blown leads in the ninth fall squarely on the front office as well. With each brutal loss like Monday’s, Buster Posey’s defensive answer on the team’s closer situation just looks worse and worse especially since the Giants did not upgrade the bullpen in any meaningful way during the offseason even though it was a clear need.

Vitello doesn’t have a lot of good options in the bullpen so he shouldn’t shoulder all of the blame but he’s obviously still learning how to manage a big league bullpen and is going to make mistakes.

Estes spoke to the frustrations a lot of Giants fans were feeling Monday night. The sad part is the Giants played eight innings of solid baseball and did a lot of things right but it was wasted. Worst of all is that this will almost surely not be the last time the team blows a lead like that this season which is why it is nearly impossible to see the Giants digging out of the hole they’re in.

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