SF Giants manager Gabe Kapler takes responsibility for 'mental screw-up' in 10th inning

The San Francisco Giants fell to the San Diego Padres 12-7 in extra innings Thursday night after a top-of-the-10th meltdown that featured a Tyler Rogers implosion and an embarrassing Gabe Kapler brain fart.

Rogers, the reliever who was lit up by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the season opener, was charged with five earned runs and failed to earn an out in the 10th after retiring the side in the 9th. His ERA on the young season now stand at 20.25.

With Rogers struggling, Kapler walked on the field and moved to replace him with right-handed-reliever Rico Garcia, but seemingly did not take notice of the fact that pitching coach Andrew Bailey had just completed his own visit to the mound. Under MLB rules, if a pitcher receives two mound visits in the same inning during a given at-bat, the pitcher must face the batter until the batter is retired or reaches base.

Umpires then ordered Tyler Rogers to re-take the mound against Padres catcher Austin Hedges, who promptly laid down a successful squeeze bunt that brought in another run.

After the game, Kapler took responsibility for the "screw-up."

"That was just a mental screw-up on my part," he told reporters. "I've been around the game for a long time and I just had a lapse in memory in the dugout. We were talking about a lot of different things and I popped out there and went and got him and obviously that was just a mental screw-up on my part. I just wanted to own that. It's 100 percent my responsibility."

Kapler had a similar bullpen mishap during his first season as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, when he called on a reliever who hadn't even been warming up to enter a game, and was subsequently chewed out by the MLB.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting