Tony Vitello is ruining SF Giants' best bullpen success story of the season

The bullpen has not been very good at all for the SF Giants this season, but reliever Dylan Smith has been one of the few bright spots. Acquired at the start of the season from the Detroit Tigers, Smith has essentially become San Francisco’s de factor closer but manager Tony Vitello is running him into the ground.

Vitello tried to use Smith to get a six-out save on Monday night against the St. Louis Cardinals but his pitch count went into the thirties and he ended up allowing the tying run to score. His ERA is now 3.24 on the season but his numbers have not been great as of late.

In his last seven outings he has a 5.14 ERA in seven innings pitched while giving up 12 hits and four walks. That is ever since the Giants used Smith to record a six-out save back on August 19 against the Cleveland Guardians. It was an impressive performance which was pretty clear evidence that Smith deserves a role on next year’s team, but it wasn’t exactly a model to replicate going forward. It’s understandable if everyone else in the bullpen is spent and you’re try to milk two innings out of a guy but turning it into a regular thing seems like a good way to shred a guy’s arm.

It seems pretty clear that Smith is tired and has been overused so the Giants should probably back off a bit and limit him to just one inning at a time going forward. He can’t be a part of next year’s bullpen if he gets run into the ground or injures himself so they need to be careful.

Tony Vitello needs to be smarter with bullpen the rest of the season

Vitello obviously has limited resources at his disposal and there have been so many injuries to the pitching staff as a whole and especially the bullpen that he’s just trying to do whatever he can to get through games, but he needs to be smarter with Smith.

He could have gone with Reiver Sanmartin in the eighth inning and then saved Smith for the ninth but it was clear Vitello wanted his best pitcher on the mound so he decided to roll the dice with Smith. It’s understandable that Vitello wanted to go for a win. Monday’s game may be the closest the Giants get to a playoff atmosphere this whole season with a team in St. Louis fighting to stay alive in the NL Wild Card race so perhaps there is value in going all out to win the game.

Still, they’ve already lost so many of their arms that they have to be more cautious with Smith. He’s been effective but the more they use him the more his effectiveness will likely drop so Vitello may be wise to prioritize being smart with his relievers even if it may cost the team some games going forward.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow