The Giants found another excruciating and creative way to lose in Kansas City while getting swept by the Royals and falling 18 games under .500 on Wednesday afternoon.
Manager Tony Vitello was thrown out during a nightmarish bottom of the seventh inning that doomed San Francisco in its 5-4 loss — the team’s fifth in a row and 60th defeat of the season.
Vitello vociferously argued after Royals baserunner Vinnie Pasquantino was called safe while sliding into second while the Giants led 3-0.
The second base umpire Mike Estabrook ruled that Willy Adames pushed Pasquantino off the base and thus ruled him safe, a call that infuriated the first-year manager after he was told the umpire crew could not review the play. That led to Vitello being tossed by third base umpire Lance Barrett while continuing to argue on his way back to the dugout.
“We wanted to replay the tag-out whether he was safe or not,” Vitello told reporters in Kansas City. “As we stand here, I don’t know whether he was out or safe.”
Tony V gets tossed for arguing a truly horrific call
pic.twitter.com/TajxzC9pBS— KNBR (@KNBR) July 22, 2026
With a seething Vitello relegated back to his clubhouse office, Giants starter Landen Roupp’s strong start was undone with one pitch.
He gave up a two-run home run to KC’s future Hall of Famer Salvador Perez, the 317th of his career and a shot that tied him with fellow Royals legend George Brett for the most in Kansas City history.
The Giants pulled Roupp, and after Sam Hentges could not finish the inning, asked Keaton Winn to come up big. Instead, he allowed Nick Loftin to tie the game at 3 with a run-scoring single.
Lane Thomas, who had struck out all three times against Roupp, then cleared the bases with a two-run single as the Royals batted around while taking a 5-3 lead.
The Giants have now blown a lead in all five of their consecutive losses.
Roupp, who was on the mound for the Giants’ 7-0 victory in their first game after the All-Star break, was going for his third straight win against the cellar-dwelling Royals.
He had his sinker, curveball and changeup working in Kansas City early on, throwing 91 pitches over six innings and allowing four hits while striking out seven.
The Giants were hoping to avoid their third losing skid of at least five games, and first such slide post-All-Star break.
After five scoreless innings, some smallball allowed San Francisco to put its first run on the board. Adames drew a walk to begin the top of the sixth. After Royals starter Seth Lugo hit Drew Gilbert on a sweeper down and in, Drew Cavanaugh pushed a bunt to first base and moved both runners into scoring position.
Luis Arraez finished the exhibition in opportunistic baseball by driving a ball to center for a sacrifice fly as Adames scored without a hit being recorded in the inning.
Roupp delivered a shutdown inning in the bottom of the sixth, by striking out Thomas on an 86-mile-per-hour changeup to end the inning with a runner stranded on second.
Jung Hoo Lee gave the Giants an insurance run by tripling to right to score Rafael Devers in the seventh. It was just the Giants’ second hit of the day to that point.
Adames quickly made it 3-0 by following with a ground-rule double over the left field wall to score Lee and make it 3-0.
Those runs proved to be helpful but ultimately meaningless after Vitello was ejected and Roupp allowed Perez to hit his historic homer and trigger the Royals’ rally.
The Giants (42-60) will begin their home series against the Los Angeles Angels on Friday. Logan Webb (5-7, 3.88 ERA) is expected to start for San Francisco against the Angels’ Grayson Rodriguez (3-3, 8.23 ERA).
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.times-standard.com ’
