The most interesting Giants rookie to watch on Opening Night won’t be on the field. He’ll be in the dugout.
Tony Vitello will make his managerial debut in Wednesday night’s 2026 opener against the Yankees at Oracle Park (5 p.m. PT, on Netflix), marking his official introduction to the big leagues. Vitello, who was hired out of the University of Tennessee in October, had six weeks of Spring Training to ease into his new gig, but he knows the intensity will ratchet up once the regular season begins.
“It’ll be completely different from Spring Training, as far as the pace and the circumstances,” Vitello said. “Even the crowds are bigger. So many external circumstances are different, but I do think baseball is going to be the same.
“Ready or not, here we come.”
Vitello won’t be the only new face on the Giants this year. The club also brought in second baseman Luis Arraez, center fielder Harrison Bader and veteran starters Adrian Houser and Tyler Mahle over the offseason to supplement a core that already featured star infielders Rafael Devers, Willy Adames and Matt Chapman and ace right-hander Logan Webb.
San Francisco finished 81-81 in 2025 and has missed the playoffs in eight of the last nine years, but the club is hungry to show that it has the pieces to contend in the National League West this year.
“We got some new players in here, some new energy, so it should be fun,” Webb said. “We’ve just got to stick together. Guys that have been here for a little while can use the pain of the last couple years to our advantage and kind of try to learn from our mistakes.”
