This is the Blake Snell that the Giants thought they were getting when they signed the two-time Cy Young Award winner to a hefty free-agent contract this past offseason.
With another strong outing, this time in a 2-0 win over a pretty strong Kansas City Royals lineup on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, the only real unknown about Snell is whether or not he plans to remain with the Orange and Black next season.
Snell hasn’t talked much about his future, and the subject didn’t come up after the lefty handcuffed the Royals while pitching San Francisco to its third shutout in its last six games.
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It’s a topic that is sure to get a lot of attention in the coming weeks while the Giants brass tries to formulate a plan for the offseason.
Atop the list is whether or not to retain president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Bob Melvin, both of whom have contracts running through 2025 but nothing is guaranteed beyond that.
After that, whoever is running the show and calling the shots in the front office has to make a quick read on Snell and decide what to do.
Should he hit the free-agent market again, there’s no doubt that Snell will be a hot commodity. And it’s unlikely that he will wait as long to make a decision as he did a year ago when the pitcher didn’t sign a contract with the Giants until late in spring training.
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That led to an unusually rough stretch for Snell, who lost his first three starts and didn’t earn his first victory until throwing a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 2.
He’s been a beast since then.
“I wish I could have done it sooner,” Snell told reporters following Sunday’s game. “I wish I was healthier. I wish I would have slowed down, listened to myself more. But it’s learning moments. Everything that happened, I’m happy about it. I learned a lot, I got better. I’m Just continuing to learn, continuing to grow.
“Results will go up and down and you’ll have good, bad, whatever. The more consistent I am, the more I learn, the more that I add (or) take away, to continue to be the best player I can be, that’s what excites me the most.”
Against the Royals, Snell certainly had flashes of the top-level pitcher he’s been.
Snell strung together six solid shutout innings, limiting the playoff-contending Royals to two hits and one walk. He had nine strikeouts, marking the sixth time in 20 starts that Snell has whiffed nine or more.
“That’s the thing about having four-plus pitches,” Melvin said Sunday. “He’s gotten pretty good at knowing early on what is working for him. He was able to navigate (the zone) with his breaking stuff down in the zone. A great feel for what he’s doing.”
As Melvin pointed out, Snell has an arsenal of pitches he can rely on. Usually, it’s been a combination of fastballs and change-ups, but Snell relied on a wicked curve to do a lot of damage against the Royals.
Snell threw it 25 times and got 12 misses and seven called strikes out of it.
“Curveball’s been feeling good but today was a lot better than what I thought it was going to be,” Snell said. “I found some things the last two days that really helped me. Now the curveball … it’s not what I wanted but it’s getting there.”
Snell obviously has the stuff to be one of the top pitchers in the majors, but it’s his mental approach that helps separate him from the rest. That helps him to make adjustments, not just from game to game but from pitch to pitch.
For example, after realizing early on that the Royals were getting good contact off his change-up Snell made another change-up and leaned more heavily on the curve.
In one way, it’s too little too late.
At the same time, Snell is showing what he’s capable of. That’s the challenge facing the rest of the Giants as they navigate through the final six games of the season.
“Two (wins) in Baltimore and then sweeping the Royals, playoff teams, there’s nothing better,” Snell said. “It’s frustrating because we know how good we are. For us to not get it done the way we believe we could, that’s frustrating. But it speaks a lot about how we want to win.
“We’re not just going to cave in. We want to play, we want to win, we want to make it hard on these teams to beat us. We’re doing a great job of that. We’re all playing for a lot. Bob’s made that very clear. We’re doing that, so very exciting. Just good baseball.”
Snell has one more chance to impress the Giants if he has plans on sticking around for another season. He will make his final start next weekend at Oracle Park against the St. Louis Cardinals.
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