SAN FRANCISCO – In a season that has been nothing close at all to what was expected of him, it was oddly appropriate that Blake Snell had nothing to show from his best outing in a Giants uniform.
Looking a lot like the pitcher that has two Cy Young Awards on his résumé, Snell was in dominant form Sunday against the Minnesota Twins, carrying a perfect game into the seventh inning of the Giants' 3-2 win in San Francisco’s final game before the All-Star break.
The only hit Snell allowed was a single to Manuel Margot leading off the seventh. Snell immediately induced a 6-4-3 double play to erase the runner, and then struck out Brooks Lee swinging to end the inning.
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The 80-pitch masterpiece was Snell’s best of the season so far and could be a signal that his season finally is starting to turn around.
“Good, getting better,” Snell said in the Giants’ clubhouse at Oracle Park. “Found some things that I liked today with conistency in my delivery and just repeating that. Happy with that. Sequences, I was happy with them but a couple that I could have done better. But overall happy and feel good.”
There hadn’t been much to feel good about for Snell or the Giants before Sunday. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner had a whopping 7.85 ERA entering the game and had made it through five innings only once in his previous seven starts.
Snell was in line for his first win with the Giants until closer Camilo Doval’s meltdown in the ninth left the score tied at 2.
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“That was good. How could it get much better?” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of Snell’s outing. “There wasn’t even any hard contact really. Even the (Margot) base hit was soft. But you could see from the very beginning, his mechanics were perfect. All his pitches were working, and that’s what you get when you get a Blake Snell that’s healthy.
“He was a little uneven to begin (the season) with injuries and so forth, but he’s really hit his stride now where he feels confident. It was a fantastic performance.”
That’s back-to-back solid starts for Snell. His game against the Twins came on the heels of throwing five scoreless innings against the Toronto Blue Jays last Tuesday.
Snell’s ERA has dropped from 9.51 to 6.31 over that time.
“He’s an excellent pitcher. It looks like he’s really finding his footing right now,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s got really good stuff, so you’re going to expand at times. You’re going to swing at some pitches out of the zone against him unless you’re just taking indefinitely, which you cannot do. We were ready to swing the bats, but we wanted to make him get ahead and he did, and when he gets ahead, he’s very tough.
“When one of the best pitchers in the league is ahead of you, it’s going to be a tough at-bat. That’s what I saw today. He established that he could command his pitches early in the count. That’s what happened.”
Mike Yastrzemski, who scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth Sunday, watched Snell work while he patrolled right field and saw a lot of what he’s accustomed to seeing.
“That’s the guy that we grew to face, and we know him from that,” Yaz said. “I’m really happy to see him feeling well in (the) last two outings. I think it sets him up for a great second half run.”
Snell, who missed all of spring training while searching for a free agent contract, said he's feeling more in tune with himself now and credits that as much as anything else for his recent success.
“I just think the more you pitch, the more you understand yourself, and you get better and better,” Snell said. “Two good outings with good results, but I like how much I’ve been feeling better, syncing up and repeating the delivery. Even more on that mentally, the way I’m talking and thinking, that’s getting better as well.”
Snell admitted he let his mind wander to thoughts of a perfect game, but he was fine when it didn’t happen. He believes Sunday’s overall effort can be a building block for the second half of the season when the Giants also expect to have starters Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray in the rotation.
“Very excited, can’t wait,” Snell said. “It makes us a lot scarier and more dangerous. It just puts us in a really good position to have a chance to get to the playoffs.”
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