Tony Vitello pulled Rafael Devers for a pinch runner in the top of the ninth inning in Miami, and Devers let him know he did not like it. He wagged his finger toward Vitello, tried to shoo Jonah Cox away from the bag and then left the field cursing into his helmet as the Giants lost a one-run game they still had a chance to flip.
The timing mattered because Devers had just drawn a leadoff walk with the Giants trailing by one, putting the tying run on base with no outs. Instead of keeping his bat in the middle of the order, Vitello sent in Cox, who had been called up from Double-A on June 1, and the move shifted the late inning from power to speed. The game ended when Jung Hoo Lee flied out and Willy Adames hit into a double play before Cox could even think about stealing second base.
Vitello said after the game that Devers' leg had been bothering him a little bit, and that Cox gave the Giants their best shot to tie the score against Marlins reliever Lake Bachar, whom he described as difficult to run against. He also made clear that the move was final once it was announced. Devers, he said, wanted to stay in the game. That was obvious from the reaction on the field, where the disagreement was visible long before the final out arrived.
What made the scene stand out was the gap between the objection and the relationship Vitello described afterward. He said the Giants and Devers are good, that they talk every day and that he had no problem with the slugger, even after a moment that played out with all the edge of a dugout argument in public. The move also came with trade-offs the Giants could not hide: taking Devers out meant taking out a hitter who has 11 homers this season and 246 for his career, and it left the club needing speed to make up for power in the game's final outs.
The Giants lost 2-1 and were swept in Miami, another setback in a first season for Vitello that has not settled into a clean script. The club is now 31-46, and the next question is not whether Devers and Vitello spoke the same language afterward, but whether the leg issue that briefly took Devers out of the game will shape how the Giants use him when they get back to San Francisco.
