Tony Vitello ejected as Giants fall apart in fifth straight loss, swept by Royals

KANSAS CITY — Tony Vitello was ejected one batter into the bottom of the seventh Wednesday afternoon, and everything began to fall apart soon thereafter.

The Giants manager was upset about a ruling from second base umpire Mike Estabrook, who said Willy Adames had pushed Vinnie Pasquantino off the bag after he doubled to lead off the seventh. Adames was so animated in his disapproval that he could have been tossed, too.

The Giants’ protests went nowhere, Pasquantino was ruled safe and he would trot home to score the Royals’ first run in an eventual 5-4 victory when Landen Roupp served up a home run to the next batter, Salvador Perez, who took a curtain call after tying the Royals’ franchise record with his 317th career blast.

The seventh inning that began with the Giants leading 3-0 went from bad to worse after Sam Hentges took over following the homer. Kansas City batted around and scored all five of its runs in the inning. 

Hentges fielded a bunt from the first batter he faced, threw it past Rafael Devers into foul territory, and only recorded one out. Keaton Winn didn’t fare any better, walking a batter and serving up a pair of RBI singles in a death-by-a-thousand-cuts kind of inning.

It’s possible it all would have played out differently had another call not gone against the Giants to begin the inning. San Francisco was frustrated with the umpiring all series, particularly as it pertained to Adames, and it felt like it was building toward an ejection.

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What put them over the edge was the questionable ruling at second base. Adames emphatically argued that he merely maintained the tag on Pasquantino, who was already falling away from the bag. Estabrook immediately ruled that Adames had pushed him off the base.

The umpires huddled on the infield grass but didn’t review the call. 

Vitello had retreated back to the dugout but reemerged after Pasquantino was awarded second and was eventually ejected for the third time this season — his second time in two weeks — by third base ump Lance Barrett. 

It was Barrett who exchanged words with the Giants’ dugout after a check-swing call went against Adames in Tuesday’s loss. That same game, when Barrett was behind the plate, a catcher’s interference wasn’t called when Adames’ bat appeared to strike the glove of Royals catcher Carter Jensen.

There were four teams in the majors with worse records than the Giants when the series began. Following their seventh sweep of the season, there are only three.

The Royals improved to 43-60, while the Giants’ fifth straight loss sent them to 42-60.

In all five losses, the Giants took a lead in the early innings but failed to build on it and eventually let it slip away. The Giants only reached four runs for the first time since their last win thanks to Casey Schmitt’s solo home run with two outs in the ninth.

After Roupp was knocked around and the Giants lost for the 11th consecutive time he took the mound, he went looking for answers, made a mechanical tweak and has seen the payoff.

Roupp said his arm was lagging behind the rest of his body in his motion, leading him to lose command. In three starts since speeding up his arm, he has surrendered only three runs over 21 innings, a 1.29 ERA.

On Wednesday, he didn’t issue a walk and upped his strikeout total with seven over six-plus innings. Before he yielded the double to Pasquantino and the ensuing home run to Perez to begin the seventh, he had faced only one batter more than the minimum through six innings.

Vitello chose an interesting player to single out when he brought up the team’s confidence level before the game.

“You’ve lost two games, lost the Seattle series. You can see yourself in that light,” Vitello said, “or you can see yourself as Casey Schmitt, one of the best defensive players in the league and capable of driving the ball out of the park and having good at-bats.”

Whether there was anything more to read into the manager’s choice of examples, Schmitt has been in a bit of a rut at the plate and looked more out of sorts than normal Wednesday.

The third baseman took a long, slow walk back to the dugout after he struck out for the second time in his second trip to the plate against Seth Lugo. He went down looking his third time up.

His home run in the ninth inning snapped him out of a 3-for-23 skid since the All-Star break.

The Giants return to San Francisco, where they’ll have the day off Thursday before Logan Webb begins their weekend series against the Angels on Friday. Following the off-day, the Giants will play 13 consecutive games before their next break Aug. 6.

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