Tony Vitello's honeymoon phase with SF Giants is over before it even began

After two straight duds to start the season, new SF Giants manager Tony Vitello has to be reeling a bit. It’s already a tough transition coming to the professional ranks from college with no prior pro ball experience, but to get blanked in your first two games in such a public way is a brutal way to get the ball rolling.

Vitello seemed to be trying to make sense of whats gone wrong in the first two games during his postgame presser after Friday’s 3-0 loss to the New York Yankees. He said he thought the team has played with too much emotion and even seemed to blame a speech he gave a few games before the start of the season for that.

There is no honeymoon for Tony Vitello after tough SF Giants start

It’s nice to see he is willing to accept blame when things go wrong, but he really just has to accept that whatever honeymoon phase is typically afforded a new manager is already over before it even had a chance to begin. Fans will extend some grace especially since it’s still insanely early in the season, but Giants fans are impatient. After four straight seasons of .500 baseball, the Vitello hire was meant to break the team out of the middling brand of baseball it’s been stuck in.

Fair or not, many fans are going to rush to judgment based off first impressions and those impressions have been less than ideal to put it mildly. It’s not Vitello’s fault. It would be one thing if both games were tight, one-run contests and he completely bungled the bullpen or something like that.

Instead, the team’s bats just haven’t done anything. The hits and (fingers crossed) runs are going to come at some point, so everyone just needs to take a breath and not panic. 

Even if the Giants lose Saturday’s contest and get swept, it’s not the end of the world. For some historical precedent, the 2012 Giants got swept to open their season. We all know what happened that season.

Vitello should be afforded some patience, but Giants fan are thirsting for a winner. This is not a rebuild year so if the team wins 75 games there is not going to be understanding and reassurances that they’ll get better next year. A lot is riding on this season for everyone in the organization which is a lot of pressure but that’s just where this franchise is at right now.

There's no refund on the honeymoon package though so Vitello is just going to have to try to get through these early struggles and make things work.