by Cary Osborne
If it weren’t for Yandy Díaz, Blake Snell’s return would have been near-sterling.
The Rays first baseman tarnished an otherwise excellent start for the Dodger left-hander in his first game since going on the injured list on April 3.
Snell struck out eight batters and walked none over five innings on Saturday in Tampa Bay in the Dodgers’ 4–0 loss. His 39.2% called strikes and whiff percentage is the ninth best by a Dodger starting pitcher this season. His 19 swinging strikes tied for the third-most by a Dodger pitcher this season.
Díaz, however, poked two homers over the wall to the opposite field, accounting for all three runs allowed by Snell. The homers had very non-homer characteristics at the Rays’ temporary home of George M. Steinbrenner Field (the Yankees’ Spring Training stadium):
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Díaz was 3-for-3 against Snell. The rest of the Rays were 2-for-17 against the two-time Cy Young Award winner.
“I like that I was in the zone. I was confident,” Snell said. “I knew what I wanted to do. The first homer to Yandy, that was not a good pitch. The second homer, I thought that was a really good pitch to him, and it was just a good result for him.”
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The Rays swung at 12 Snell changeups and missed on seven of them. They swung at five sliders and missed on all of them. The Rays were a combined 0-for-5 on the two Snell offerings.
He averaged 95.2 mph on his four-seamer — consistent with his yearly velocity with the pitch.
“Overall, (I was) in the zone. Curveball could get better. Changeup I was happy with. Slider I was happy with. Fastball command could get better. So just things I got to work on,” Snell said. “But overall, first start back, with the emotions, there’s a lot that I’m dealing with to get better. So it was a good start. The worst part is we lost. I go out there to win. So I’ve got to get better and find a way to win. Definitely something to build on, learn from and get better.”
Snell had a 66.3% strike percentage with his zero walks.
He had one start all of 2024 with no walks and five with a better strike percentage (out of 20 starts).
The Dodgers, however, continued a trend on this road trip of one step forward, one step back. They are now 4–4 on the nine-game trip. They have scored seven combined runs in the four losses. They have scored 20 runs in the four wins.
They have struck out 92 times in the eight games, including 11 times on Saturday. They have walked 28 times, including zero on Saturday.
“Certainly the last two, three, four weeks, it seems like the strikeouts have spiked from the entire group,” said manager Dave Roberts. “With that there’s more chase than in-zone miss. I think it’s just more of just kind of trying to shorten your swing and 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 that we would take in a hitter’s count. And so you got to find a way to put the ball in play and force something to happen.”
This is the sixth time the Dodgers have been shut out this season.
Blake Snell’s return features many of his familiar elite characteristics was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.