Left-handed starting pitcher Blake Snell (30, San Diego Padres) is on a roll as he approaches free agency.
Through nine days, Snell has pitched 98 innings in 18 games this season, posting a 6-7 record and a 2.85 ERA. He has 132 strikeouts.
That’s a big jump from his recent performance. Snell’s ERAs in April and May weren’t great, at 5.48 and 3.82 respectively. In particular, he didn’t have a single quality start in April.
However, in his five starts last month, Snell threw 31 innings, going 3-1 with a 0.87 ERA. All five games were quality starts or better.
Snell also pitched 11 scoreless innings and struck out 18 in two starts this month. On the 9th against the New York Mets, he threw six innings of one-hit ball with 11 strikeouts.
메이저사이트The expectation is for Snell to repeat his 2018 performance. Snell won the American League Cy Young Award with the Tampa Bay Rays back then.
Snell’s strength is his strong stuff. Snell leads the league in this category with 6.5 strikeouts per nine innings. He’s the pitcher who gives up the fewest hits.
His weakness is his velocity. Snell has walked a whopping 49 batters in 98 innings. He’s also first in the category of least hits and most walks.
Another weakness is that he misses a lot of games due to injury. Excluding the shortened season, he has only played 74 games in three seasons, from 2019 to last year.
Tends to get into trouble with a lot of walks despite his strong stuff. It will be interesting to see what Snell signs this winter as he continues his incredible run towards free agency.