{"id":318536,"date":"2026-05-16T06:40:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/318536\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T06:40:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:40:26","slug":"some-people-in-san-francisco-are-already-speculating-that-tony-vitello-wishes-he-was-back-with-the-tennessee-vols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/318536\/","title":{"rendered":"Some people in San Francisco are already speculating that Tony Vitello wishes he was back with the Tennessee Vols"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello is over a quarter of the way through his first season as the manager of the San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2100\" height=\"1306\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-2.02.49-PM.png\" class=\"attachment-1280 size-1280 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Tennessee Vols baseball\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  data-hero=\"atoz-hero\" \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRobert Edwards-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Tennessee Vols baseball coach Tony Vitello is over a quarter of the way through his first season as the manager of the San Francisco Giants, and reviews have been mixed so far. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vitello, who led the Vols to a national championship in 2024, has the Giants sitting 7.5 games out of a playoff spot with 118 games to play, so it\u2019s not like it\u2019s been a disastrous start. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, it hasn\u2019t been smooth sailing, either. The Giants have struggled so badly offensively that they <a href=\"https:\/\/atozsports.com\/nashville\/volunteers\/san-francisco-giants-trade-catcher-patrick-bailey-tony-vitello-tennessee-vols-baseball\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">traded light-hitting catcher Patrick Bailey<\/a>, arguably the top defensive catcher in the game, to the Cleveland Guardians in an effort to increase their offensive output. <\/p>\n<p>Some people in San Francisco are speculating that Tony Vitello wishes he was back at Tennessee <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The start to Vitello\u2019s MLB managing career has been shaky enough that some folks in San Francisco are speculating that he wishes he was back on Rocky Top. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t know why I get the feeling that if Tony Vitello could snap his fingers and go back to Tennessee without any repercussions, I think he would,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mattnahigian\/status\/2055154664195453400?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">tweeted 95.7 The Game\u2019s Matt Nahigian this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I don\u2019t know why I get the feeling that if Tony Vitello could snap his fingers and go back to Tennessee without any repercussions, I think he would.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Nahigian (@mattnahigian) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mattnahigian\/status\/2055154664195453400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We obviously don\u2019t know what Vitello is thinking deep down, but I don\u2019t believe he\u2019s actively wishing he was back at Tennessee. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s no doubt that Vitello still <a href=\"https:\/\/atozsports.com\/nashville\/volunteers\/baseball-knoxville-little-vols-tony-vitello-details-how-often-hell-return-rocky-top\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has a lot of love for Knoxville<\/a>, but I truly believe he\u2019s 100 percent focused on his job with the Giants. I think the biggest thing on his mind is how to win that day\u2019s game. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also think Vitello is very much rooting for Josh Elander to be successful as the head coach at Tennessee. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking of Elander, the UT baseball team seems to be hitting its stride as postseason play gets closer. The Vols won a series against the Texas Longhorns last weekend, and they took Game 1 of a three-game series from the Oklahoma Sooners on Thursday night. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elander had to find his way as the coach of the Vols. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vitello is doing the same in San Francisco. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m not surprised to see the speculation about Vitello and whether he has any regrets, but it\u2019s not like an MLB manager isn\u2019t going to go through some tough stretches over the course of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I mean, just this season we\u2019ve seen a World Series-winning manager in Alex Cora get fired by the Boston Red Sox, and an NL pennant-winning manager in Rob Thomson get fired by the Philadelphia Phillies. Baseball can be a weird sport. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I still think Vitello is a potential star in the big leagues, he just needs some time to fully adjust to life in MLB. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-15-at-7.12.48-AM-200x200.png\" alt=\"Tennessee Vols\" loading=\"lazy\"   width=\"200\" height=\"200\" style=\"object-position:50% 50%\"\/>\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"query-card-horizontal__category is-style-eyebrow\">Tennessee Volunteers News<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/atozsports.com\/nashville\/volunteers\/former-vols-coach-tony-vitello-situation-veteran-giants-baseball-tennessee\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFormer Vols coach Tony Vitello had to face a tough situation with a veteran Giants player and he sent a big message at the same time\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"is-style-body-small\">Former Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello faced his first tough clubhouse situation with a veteran San Francisco Giants player, but he handled it extremely well.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Tennessee Volunteers baseball coach Tony Vitello is over a quarter of the way through his first season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,16064],"class_list":["post-318536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-tennessee-vols"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}