The Giants’ doubleheader Saturday started with an ejection before a pitch was thrown, and it came from a familiar face.
Ron Wotus, the franchise’s longest-tenured coach and a special assistant working as a uniformed coach for home games this season, was tossed during the pregame lineup card exchange with the umpiring crew. Wotus represented San Francisco in the meeting with crew chief Alan Porter, and the conversation turned heated quickly enough that Porter sent him out before the first game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Wotus is eligible to return for the second game of the doubleheader.
The early ejection didn’t come out of nowhere. It followed a tense Friday night in which Giants manager Tony Vitello was ejected in the third inning after arguing a fair/foul ruling down the third-base line. That was Vitello’s fifth ejection of the season and his second in a three-game stretch.
Friday’s trouble started earlier in the inning when right-hander Blade Tidwell did not get a strike call against Lars Nootbaar, who then doubled to open Arizona’s five-run rally. Later in the inning, Nolan Arenado hit a ground ball over third base that umpire Alex MacKay ruled fair.
The call was not reviewable. Vitello stayed in the dugout during the play, but after the inning he yelled at Porter from the rail while holding his hands about a foot apart.
Porter ejected Vitello, and Vitello then came onto the field and confronted him nose-to-nose for several moments.
Afterward, Vitello said Porter “didn’t like that I didn’t go on the field to argue it.”
“If I was going to try and get personal, I would have went to the third-base umpire, it was his call, but I wasn’t looking to get personal,” Vitello said.
He added that once he went onto the field, things “got personal real quick. Real quick.”
Vitello also said the exchange left him with the sense that there was something more than a simple disagreement over a call.
“I mean, I ain’t the smartest guy, but I can pick up on that,” Vitello said.
“I don’t need any respect,” Vitello said later. “I haven’t earned it as much as some of those guys.”
Webb, who picked up his first career ejection Friday, didn’t rule out the idea that Vitello is being handled differently because of his unconventional path to the job.
“I mean, it’s definitely possible, right?” Webb said.
“It’s his first year. When I was a rookie, I was told by older players to not talk back, especially to older umpires.
Maybe it’s something similar, but he’s a manager for a big-league baseball team. I don’t think he should be treated any different way.”
Vitello, the first major-league manager in modern history hired with no professional playing or coaching experience, now has five ejections this season, one behind Pittsburgh Pirates manager Don Kelly for the major-league lead.
The incident also fit a pattern that has already surfaced several times this season. Vitello has had multiple run-ins with umpires, and in at least four of his five ejections, the hook has come quickly. He has also said there have been moments when umpires have treated him or members of his staff with contempt.
In a late-April series at Tampa Bay, Vitello said umpire Hunter Wendelstedt made a “rah-rah and pom-poms” comment while ejecting Giants director of pitching Frank Anderson, who was Vitello’s pitching coach at Tennessee.
Wotus’ ejection during the lineup card exchange was not a first for baseball, either. Former Giants manager Bob Melvin was tossed in 2024 for arguing a call from the previous night.
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