TAMPA, Fla. — Blake Snell returned to the major leagues – just not in a major-league stadium.
In his first start in four months, Snell gave up two home runs to Yandy Diaz – both boosted by the favorable setting at Steinbrenner Field – and the Dodgers went on to lose to the Tampa Bay Rays 4-0 on Saturday afternoon.
The Dodgers were unable to take advantage of the hitter-friendly spring home of the New York Yankees, summer home of the Gulf Coast League’s Tampa Tarpons and the temporary home of the displaced Rays. They managed just six singles in the loss.
“I thought Blake threw the baseball really well today. I thought, to be quite frank, he was a victim of this ballpark,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “There were a couple fly balls to right field that just went out. It’s the same field for both teams. But I still felt he made pitches that he needed to make but unfortunately got a little bit of bad luck.”
The first batter Snell faced in the big leagues since April 2, Diaz swung at his fifth pitch, a 3-and-1 fastball down and in, and sliced it in the air to right field. The consensus developed over the Rays’ season at Steinbrenner Field is that the ball carries to right field.
And it did. Diaz’s fly ball left his bat at 93.5 mph – not even hard enough to qualify as a “hard-hit ball” by Statcast standards (that starts at 95 mph) – and it traveled just 326 feet. That was enough to land in the first row of seats for a solo home run – though Statcast measurement said it would not have been a home run in any other MLB stadium.
Snell struck out five of the next eight batters. When Diaz came up again in the third inning, he repeated the feat. This time, with a runner on first, he got a 1-and-1 fastball at the top of the zone and lofted it in the same direction.
This drive left the bat even more softly than the first (92.2 mph) but traveled farther (341 feet). Statcast estimated it would have cleared the right-field fence in two other stadiums – Yankee Stadium and Daikin Park in Houston.
“I was surprised,” Roberts said. “I’m not all about the exit velo, but I heard it was 92 or 93, something like that. I didn’t think he got it good. And the other one, I thought he hit out of the catcher’s glove. But again, he put the bat on the ball and the ball went out of the ballpark. But I was surprised. Even on the (Junior) Caminero ball from (Jack) Dreyer (a solo home run to center field in the sixth inning). I thought it was a fly ball. But it wasn’t meant to be.”
Other than his encounters with Diaz – he also singled in the fifth inning – Snell was good in his return to the Dodgers. He gave up just two hits to non-Diaz batters, walked none and struck out eight.
“I mean, Yandy won the game,” Snell said of his former Rays teammate. “Yandy did good.”
Snell held his velocity, averaging 95.2 mph on 39 four-seam fastballs in his five innings and got 19 swings-and-misses – seven on his changeup, six on his fastball, five on his slider and one on a curveball.
“That was probably the most encouraging thing,” Roberts said. “I just thought overall – he’s probably going to say he didn’t have great command or there are things to work on, which there always is. But for the first one, I thought the secondary was good. I thought the fastball had life too.”
Snell said he was happy overall with his first start after missing four months with shoulder pain.
“I liked I was in the zone more than I thought I would’ve been,” said Snell, who returned to the mound on the one-year anniversary of his no-hitter for the Giants last year. “You’re just trying to feel it out again, so I like that. I was in the zone, I was confident, I knew what I wanted to do. The first homer to Yandy, that was not a good pitch, I thought, to him. On the second homer, I thought that was a really good pitch to him, and it was. Just a good result for him.
“But yeah, overall, (I was) in the zone. Curveball will get better. Changeup, I was happy with. Slider, I was happy with. Fastball command could get better. So it’s just things I gotta work on. But overall, first start back, emotions … it was a good start.”
The Dodgers’ offense offered little support. They didn’t get a runner past first base until the sixth inning when Miguel Rojas bunted his way on and singles from Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman loaded the bases with one out.
Teoscar Hernandez grounded into a double play to end that and the Dodgers didn’t have another baserunner in the game.
“It was a good pitch. I think I hit it at the end (of the bat),” Hernandez said. “It was a good pitch to hit. I didn’t put a good swing on it. Just one of those pitches that you want it back. But unfortunately, I hit it for a double play. But it’s something that is going to happen.”
Dodgers hitters struck out 11 times in the game and 26 in the first two games of this series, continuing a trend that dragged down the offense during the month of July. The Dodgers have struck out 252 times in their past 26 games. Not coincidentally, they have averaged just 3.69 runs per game in that time.
“It has spiked. I don’t know a timeline but certainly the last two, three, four weeks it seems like the strikeouts have spiked from the entire group,” Roberts said. “Obviously with that, there’s more chase than in-zone miss. I think it’s just more about trying to shorten your swing, put the ball in play, have a two-strike approach because I do see a lot of the same two-strike swings are the same big swings we would take in a hitter’s count. We’ve got to find a way to put the ball in play, force something to happen. If you look at the strikeout rate, the last few weeks, it’s certainly up there. We’ve got to get better.
“We’ve got to find a way to reset. Just overall take better at-bats and have a two-strike approach.”
Ohtani struck out three of those times Saturday and has batted just .202 (22 for 109) with 41 strikeouts over his past 28 games.