ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Giants paid $62 million to add a two-time Cy Young winner to their rotation. Two-and-a-half weeks into the season, they’re still waiting for him to arrive.
The Giants also committed those dollars to a pitcher with a history of slow starts and questionable command, and that is the Blake Snell who showed up again Sunday in his second start for his new team at the venue he called home for the first five years of his big-league career.
His former club, the Tampa Bay Rays, had the right plan of attack against their friend-turned-foe, waiting until he found the strike zone and ambushing him on the too-infrequent occasions that he did. They chased him after four innings, 78 pitches, and seven runs, sending the Giants to their second loss, 9-4, in two Snell starts.
Snell said there were “no emotions” in stepping back on the Tropicana Field mound and acknowledged he was still working out the kinks after an abbreviated spring training but that there were “no excuses.”
“I’ve gotta get better,” Snell said. “We’ll get there, but definitely frustrating.”
It’s not exactly the results they envisioned when they inked the 31-year-old left-hander late in spring training. Only finalizing the deal on March 19, it is the reality they signed up for, though. Before first pitch, manager Bob Melvin acknowledged the goal, still, was for him “to settle in and get comfortable.”
Afterward, Melvin said, “Really, it’s just about getting a foothold out there and getting a good outing under his belt. … Move on to the next, and one of these starts he’s going to find it.”
His start Sunday was only the fifth time he has stepped onto the mound in a Giants uniform, counting two appearances in extended spring training and a simulated game at Dodger Stadium, and it was apparent from the get-go that there was still some settling in to do.
The first pitch out of Snell’s left hand was a fastball a foot outside and about the same distance above the strike zone. The first two curveballs he threw he buried in the dirt, and the third Randy Arozarena uncorked at 104 mph to drive home the Rays’ first run of the game.
Arozarena’s RBI single was already the third of six eventual Tampa Bay balls in play off Snell that left their bats at 100-plus mph. Only nine previous times in the pitch-tracking era (since 2016) had Snell allowed hitters to square him up as often, all but one in starts longer than this one.
“Not often do you see him get hit hard,” Melvin said. “He’ll give up some walks and get nicked up a little bit, but it’s rare that you see him get hit like that. I think that’s more still feeling his way.”
Through two starts, Snell has allowed 10 runs over seven innings and taken the loss both times.
Overall, Snell landed only 48 of his pitches Sunday for strikes and ran two- or three-ball counts against nine of the 20 hitters he faced.
“I’ve got to locate pitches better,” Snell said. “Once I start striking them I’ll be fine. I’ve just got to get in the zone, attack, and then I’ll be fine.”
The Giants understood that was part of the bargain, but the rub with Snell, even while winning the National League Cy Young last season, was that he was so good at missing bats and so difficult to make quality contact against that he was rarely penalized by all the extra base runners.
Snell didn’t walk his first batter until his final inning, but the Rays made him pay for it when he did. Issuing consecutive free passes to the first two batters of the fourth, both walks turned into runs when René Pinto, the ninth-hitting backup catcher, sent a 3-2 fastball screaming at 108.1 mph into the left field seats, 433 feet away.
The home run, extending the Rays’ advantage to 7-1, was the second of the day surrendered by Snell, and Pinto would later add a second against Kai-Wei Teng in the sixth. It was Amed Rosario who delivered the other big swing, capping a three-run first inning with a line drive that snuck over the left-field wall.
Both pitches Snell would like to have back.
“The changeup to Rosario, if I’m down and away like I should (be) instead of up-middle, it’s a completely different at-bat,” Snell said. “I could go on and on. But the location needs to get better.”
While Snell used his changeup to record five of his 11 swings and misses — and one well-located one to get Pinto looking in his first at-bat — he said, “I got lucky with a lot of inside changeups.”
“If I miss middle-in, I’m good. If I miss up with a changeup, it’s going to get hit every time,” he continued. “I try to get out in front and then I turn more so the ball runs in. And then when I stay away, I’m not releasing out front, I’m late, and the ball sails up and away. Once I start finishing out front, then my directions to the plate will be better and I’ll be able to strike changeups and not miss in.”
The curveball, which he used to put away Curtis Mead for the first of five strikeouts, also has room to improve. Snell has two varieties but wasn’t able to differentiate between them. While the velocity on his fastball — 95.4 on average — was where he wanted to be, the breaking ball was too slow for his liking.
“When I’m good, it’ll be 84-80 (mph),” Snell said, compared to his 76-82 mph range Sunday. “Then it’s all wrist placement if it’s a 12-6 curveball or if I want to backdoor it. … (I’m) just getting around it too much. It’s more sweeper-ish than 12-6. I have both, but if I want to throw 12-6, I should be able to do it. If I want to do sweeper-ish, I should be able to do it.”
The Rays’ three-run first erased a 1-0 lead built when LaMonte Wade Jr. singled home Jung Hoo Lee in the top half of the inning, and the Giants never regained an advantage. The RBI single extended Wade’s on-base streak to 10 games, but it proved to be their last hit until Tyler Fitzgerald led off the sixth with a hustle double.
After their bats broke out in a big way to pick up an 11-2 win Saturday, they were largely flummoxed by a Tampa Bay tag team of righty Shawn Armstrong, who covered the first two innings, and lefty Tyler Alexander, who took down the ensuing six frames.
Following Wade’s first-inning single, the Giants went 14 up, 14 down, but Jorge Soler at least made sure their next base runner was worthwhile, ripping a two-out single through the left side of the infield to score Fitzgerald, cutting the deficit to 7-2.
A solo shot from Michael Conforto in the seventh — his team-leading fourth of the season and his second against a left-hander — pulled the Giants within five, but Isaac Paredes stole the run right back in the bottom half with the Rays’ fourth homer of the game, the second allowed by Teng.
By the time he walked off the mound after the fourth, Snell wasn’t totally emotionless.
“I get mad when I don’t do good,” he said.
Notable
Dropping two of three at Tropicana Field, the Giants have won only one of their five series to begin the season.
Melvin called on Taylor Rogers to record the final out of the eighth inning, getting the lefty his first work since Tuesday. Likewise, Tyler Rogers hasn’t appeared in a game since Tuesday and closer Camilo Doval hasn’t been needed in more than a week, his first and only save coming last Sunday, two full series ago.
Up next
No better opponent for the Giants to rebound against than the Miami Marlins, who own the worst record in the majors at 3-13. The Marlins have not announced their starters for the series, but the Giants will throw Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks and Keaton Winn. They will also reunite with former manager Gabe Kapler, who now is an assistant general manager in Miami.
