Things have been rough for the Giants of late, and Gabe Kapler’s frustration seemed to bubble over in the postgame scrum with reporters on Wednesday.
Kapler had a testy back-and-forth with KNBR’s Giants beat reporter Danny Emerman, over a question about the inconsistency of pinch hitting for recent call-up Wade Meckler. Two days earlier, Kapler had decided not to pinch hit for Meckler, at the time playing in his first MLB game, in a high-leverage, bases loaded situation. On Wednesday in a similar situation, Kapler did pinch hit Austin Slater for Meckler, who grounded into a double play.
Kapler’s reasoning was that Slater, although currently slumping, is a far more accomplished overall hitter than Heliot Ramos, who was the available pinch hitter in the game on Monday.
Instead of laying out his reasoning in a straightforward manner, however, Kapler elected to get into a back-and-forth that showed his frustration.
On the Giants off day on Thursday, before they begin brutal back-to-back road series’ vs. the Braves and Phillies, Kapler joined F.P. Santangelo on KNBR Tonight to discuss the incident. The Giants skipper admitted his frustration with the way his club has been playing, losing eight of their last 11, was a contributing factor.
“As to how I reacted, I think I just reacted like a guy who had just come off a game where his team got beat up pretty good by the Tampa Bay Rays and probably less patient than I could’ve been,” Kapler said. “I told Danny that, I can always be a little more patient in those interactions.
“If I had to do the interaction all over after my day of filling my belly with ribs and going down to the river, I might have just said we look at a couple of things when we make those decisions,” Kapler continued. “The first thing is the leverage of the situation, how important it is in the context of the game. The second is who the batter is walking up to the plate. And the third is the batters you have available. Thought Slater was a good guy to take down that moment, simple as that.
“I would have probably said it in just that fashion had I been less frustrated from the game. It’s part of baseball, as you mentioned.”
Kapler also made clear that he’s harboring no ill will towards Emerman, with whom he says he has a very positive working relationship.
“Danny is as thoughtful and as aware and as fair as any reporter I’ve been around,” Kapler said. “It’s amazing, because he’s doing this at a really early stage in his career, and I think he’s both finding his way but also asking the tough question, asking the challenging question, as you saw in the scrum.”
As always, the noise around Kapler will die down if the Giants can start stringing some wins together. That will be difficult vs. two of the NL’s best teams, but will be necessary if SF hopes to hold onto their playoff position.
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch KNBR Tonight with F.P. Santangelo weekdays from 6 – 10 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.