Roupp's gem, bullpen lift Giants past Dodgers in opener

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tony Vitello hasn’t been getting out much since he took over as the Giants’ new manager.

“I've been in hiding,” Vitello said. “I'm holding out for some more wins.”

The Giants haven’t gotten off to the best start this year, but picking up a W against the rival Dodgers certainly figures to boost Vitello’s reputation around town.

Behind a gutsy performance from right-hander Landen Roupp, the Giants (10-13) beat the two-time defending World Series champions, 3-1, in Tuesday night’s series opener at Oracle Park.

San Francisco took advantage of defensive miscues to nick Los Angeles ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto for three runs in the first inning, providing some early breathing room for Roupp, who allowed one run on one hit over five innings to lower his ERA to 2.28 over five starts this year.

Roupp struck out seven, but he lost his feel for the zone in the fourth inning and ended up issuing a season-high five walks. Four of those free passes came in his 32-pitch fourth inning, including a bases-loaded walk to Hyeseong Kim that forced in the Dodgers’ lone run of the game. Still, Roupp managed to limit the damage by inducing a 5-4-3 double play from Alex Call to end the inning.

“I’m not really sure what happened,” Roupp said. “I kind of just felt like I was speeding up a little bit. I was able to get a double play out of that and get out of the inning. But I’m definitely not happy about that.”

Roupp’s pitch count stood at 86 at the end of the fourth, but Vitello decided to send him back out for the fifth. The 27-year-old responded by striking out two in a 1-2-3 inning and departed after throwing a career-high 106 pitches.

“I wish I could have gone a little longer,” Roupp said. “But I’ll take five any day when it’s like that.”

The Giants had a chance to expand their lead in the sixth after Jung Hoo Lee reached on a two-out single and tried to score from first on Heliot Ramos’ subsequent base hit up the middle. Lee got a great jump and was aggressively waved home by third-base coach Hector Borg, but he was thrown out at the plate and looked shaken up after he was tagged out by catcher Dalton Rushing.

Lee later exited the game and was replaced in right field by Jerar Encarnacion in the top of the eighth, though Vitello said the Giants simply wanted to give Lee extra time to recover since he banged up his right quad on a couple of recent tough slides into home plate.

“It was good to get Jung Hoo off his feet and hopefully speed up the process,” Vitello said.

Vitello leaned on his three lefty relievers -- Ryan Borucki, Matt Gage and Erik Miller -- to get through the middle part of the game before bringing in righties Keaton Winn and Ryan Walker to record the final four outs.

Walker blew his first save of the year on Saturday against the Nationals, but he got another chance to pitch the ninth on Tuesday and retired Andy Pages, Call and Alex Freeland to end the game with Shohei Ohtani on deck.

“It meant a lot, knowing that I’m still relied on to get the job done,” said Walker, who picked up his second save of the year. “When I got to 3-2 [against Freeland] and I saw it was Ohtani on deck, I’m like, ‘All right, we’re going to get this done because I don’t want to see that guy in the box.’ There’s no fear there, but he’s a good hitter and you’ve got to make your pitches. I didn’t want to make it harder on myself than I had to.”

Now that his club has secured its fourth win in its last five games, Vitello could start to feel more comfortable experiencing all that San Francisco has to offer. He initially planned to lay low after going out to dinner on Monday’s off-day, but he changed his mind after he ran into a couple of Giants fans who told him they were going to see comedian Dave Chappelle perform at the Punch Line.

“It was raining, and I called an Uber,” Vitello said. “I literally stared at the Uber, cancelled it and said, ‘Why am I being so scared?’ I coach guys and try and tell them to not be scared. I went out, tried to find a Giants fan that worked at Punch Line. That didn't work, but persistence paid off, and I eventually got my [butt] in that show. Dave was Dave. I needed a laugh. It was good to do something in the city.”

The Giants, too, showed no fear against the mighty Dodgers.

“I don’t care who’s on the team, I don’t care who they pay for,” Walker said. “They’re all baseball players. When you start getting nervous about a team coming in, they’ve already beat you. When the Dodgers come into town or we go to L.A., who cares? It’s another baseball team. We have the same mindset of, ‘We’re going to go out there and win.’”