Blake Snell is still on the runway
Three starts in, and Blake Snell is still on the runway, still waiting to take off. The passengers along for the ride are clearly starting to fidget: no legroom, no food and drink service, pricey wifi, the seatbelt sign cruelly lit. Every jolt forward or announcement from the cockpit met with hope—this is a sign, we’re about to get moving. And just as quickly: vague updates from the pilot promising progress easily boggled around to reiterations of our current arrested reality: you’re gonna have to keep waiting.
In this one, there were certainly some flashes of the Snell Cy Young stuff of old—though brief and observable with a microscope. Only one walk, pitch-count efficiency! He threw some solid change-ups at the bottom of the zone, the slider had a better shape and the curve baited swings and missed bats.
After a pesky lead-off single off the pesky-as-always Ketel Marte (who went 4-for-6, with 3 hits against Snell), the San Francisco Giants southpaw retired Corbin Carroll, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and Christian Walker on 10 pitches with moments of clear command of his pitches surfaced. A slider jammed Gurriel inside, too weakly hit to bag a 6-4-3 double play, and Walker whiffed then rolled over back-to-back change-ups to end the 1st.
The 2nd inning only cost 11-pitches with 7 of them delivered to Gabriel Moreno. Working from a 3-1 count, Snell got the Arizona catcher waving at a slider in and off the plate to get back into the at-bat, before burying him on a curveball dropping out of the zone.
In the moment, that moment felt like a Moment. Capitalized, a shift, the ding over the loud-speaker, This is your captain speaking…prepare for takeoff. This is the Snell we’ve been waiting for. Only one of the seven pitches delivered during the AB scrapped the zone. Six of them pounded Moreno in and mostly at the cleats with one notable exception: the fourth pitch fastball, letter-high and off the outside. A bad miss, or a calculated one that set-up the slider and put Moreno on his heels. After consecutive high-80s sliders, Snell then slammed the brakes with a 79 MPH curve that sent Moreno swinging and running towards the dugout in one confused motion.
Blake Snell, Filthy 79mph Curveball. pic.twitter.com/E5XyI0r9WS
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 20, 2024
That feeling of hope ground to a halt quickly. The strikeout pitch an outlier in missed opportunities for Snell.
Arizona took the lead in the 3rd after a lead-off double from rookie DH Blaze Hoffman that bounced off the top of the wall in left to stay in play. Gifted with a chance to get out of the inning, Snell had to deal with Marte with one out and Hoffman on third. Marte didn’t waste any time, pulling an 0-1 slider (not a bad one but probably too hard, too similar to the low fastball a pitch before) into left for an RBI single. The added insult to injury being that San Francisco had the exact same opportunity to scratch across a run in the previous half-inning with a leadoff double from Matt Chapman who stood on third with less than two outs. Alas, the oft seen Tom Murphy, couldn’t get it done. The back-up backstop took a belt-high low-90s sinker, then was late on two more fastballs peaking at a 93 MPH (if we round up) on the radar gun. Three opportunities to put the ball in play and drive in a run—he couldn’t do it, and Murphy took a curveball for a called-strike three. Next AB, he’d be wrung up on a pitch-clock violation to end the 4th.
It was in the 4th that Arizona’s aggressive opposite field approach finally broke through. A promising 3-pitch K to Walker was spoiled by a picky Eugenio Suárez, refusing to offer at four straight pitches off the plate. In a full count, Snell laid in a poorly located fastball that Randall Grichuk shot through a wide hole at second with Thairo Estrada pulled towards the bag.
But it’s in these typically worrisome situations that Snell earns his bread. Runners-on do not bother Snell. Walks and singles aren’t much of a threat with his ability to coax poor contact and unproductive outs from his opposition.
I nicked this table from a Sports Illustrated article that maybe doesn’t elucidate much as baffle.
The slider and curveball were PMDs (pitches of mass destruction). Wipe-out offerings guaranteed to snuff out any rally. So during Friday’s 4th, with runners on first and second and one out, you can imagine as a hitter what you’re going to get. Moreno attacked a first pitch curveball he anticipated and flew out to right.
Light at the end of the tunnel grew brighter as Snell put Blaze Alexander in a quick 1-2 hole. But credit to Alexander, he spat on a curve in the dirt and fended off two more. Still with a pitch to give with really a base to give against a green bat (albeit a hot one), Snell’s next offering was the revealing of his current disposition on the mound. He didn’t maintain the attack with another curve, or sling a biting slider, but went to the fastball. Some would say a retreat, a set-up pitch for another curve perhaps, but the fastball wasn’t elevated enough, and Alexander lined it into right for an RBI double.
Snell limited the damage to only one run—the Diamondbacks just a 2-run lead—but the clutch hit felt like a spiritual blow. A stiff wind to Snell’s house of cards. The next inning, they’d rally again with two outs. Three hits and three runs on seven pitches—Snell chased by Grichuk ambushing a knee-high, first-pitch change-up for a 2-run double. In the clubhouse, Snell’s voice was barely audible. Last start, location was the frustration, this time sequencing. He didn’t establish his fastball and played into Arizona’s plate approach with it, bagging only 2 whiffs while allowing 9 balls in play. He lamented not throwing the curve more (he threw it just twice in the 5th). A season high 85 pitches were thrown. Fatigue tightened its grip too—though Snell always looks a bit like a wrung-out towel.
Blake Snell discusses his rough outing tonight and why his early season struggles have persisted pic.twitter.com/jn0Jr4n00v
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 20, 2024
To be fair, Snell isn’t making excuses for his frustrating results so far. He’s clearly pissed about how things have shaken out in a Giants uniform—but his failure to launch on Friday was even more stark considering who he was up against. Lefty Jordan Montgomery was another of Scott Boras’s holdouts. Like Snell, winter froze out spring and the reigning World Series champ didn’t sign his 1-year contract until March 29th (ten days after Snell) with the season already under way .
Where Montgomery’s road diverged with Snell’s was how Arizona decided to get him up to speed. While Snell stayed with the Major League club, Montgomery chose to get game-action in Triple-A, making two starts in Reno. He gave up 9 runs over 7 ⅔ innings. Similar results to Snell’s 10 runs on 9 hits over his first two starts, but without the consequence of an inflated ERA or fog of self-doubt.
When it really counted, Montgomery’s first start with his new club was dominant, allowing 1 run on 4 hits over 6 innings. His only blemish was Jorge Soler’s 4th inning solo blast—San Francisco’s first home homer of the season.
These lights are Soler powered pic.twitter.com/t7e0d1qLEC
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 20, 2024
Some added grace too facing an accommodating and perhaps overly patient lineup like San Francisco who spent most of the evening grounding out to the shortstop. The team’s current OPS against opposing starters is at a dismal .624, relative to the league, a 77 sOPS+. Against relief pitchers, their sOPS+ is 117.
Still, Montgomery appeared game-ready, his rocky starts out of his system and left for dead in the desolate wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas. On the other hand, Snell was still tossing simulations. A bit aimless, gun-shy—facing the aggressive bats of the reigning NL champs couldn’t have come at a worse time.
I suppose now would be as good a time as any to announce the final score. I’ll choose the smallest font size possible that’s still readable: 17 – 1 .
The highest run total San Francisco has allowed since 2019. Arizona posted 5 runs on 9 hits against Snell and didn’t stop against Landen Roupp, or Kai-Wei Teng, or Nick Avila, or Tyler Fitzgerald either. 22 hits in all with that kid named Blaze lifting the only one to leave the park: a grand slam off Avila in the 8th.
Game three of the four game series on Saturday doesn’t get much easier. I’m sure Kyle Harrison will get more of the same righty-heavy lineup that Snell got while the bats, with Jung Hoo Lee, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Patrick Bailey (on his bobblehead day) back on the field, will get to face Zac Gallen and his 1.64 ERA.
As for Snell, our patience wears thin as we wait for him to just take off already.