The San Francisco Giants made a late splash in the offseason when they signed a reigning Cy Young winner, but things haven’t gone the way that anyone wanted it to.
Blake Snell signed his contract in late March and has only played in six games. It has been a mix of injuries and poor performances to start his time with his new team.
The Giants’ announcer, Mike Krukow, joined “KNBR” to give some insight into Snell’s mindset right now.
“He’s frustrated because he wants to stay [in San Francisco]. He goes ‘I came here with the idea that I could stay here. I want to stay here.’ He said that a couple of times,” said Krukow.
The idea that he wants to still be with the team is important because of the fact that his contract includes a player option for next year. He could cut ties with the franchise after this poor start if he wants to, but he may stick around to give things another shot.
“He’s frustrated, he kind of got rushed into the season,” Krukow said. “He had very little spring training, if any at all, [the Giants] were not going to have a high pitch count expectation from him, but he could still give [them] three or four good innings.”
The southpaw has consistently given the team three or four innings, but they haven’t been up to par. His ERA has gone down in each of his last four starts, though it’s still up to 9.51.
The 31-year-old’s longest outing so far was his last one, where he went 4.2 innings and threw 97 pitches. He had actually gotten off to a nice start in that one, the only run he allowed in the first four innings was off of a Juan Soto home run. As the pitch count grew, though, things fell apart in the fifth where he gave up two more runs.
“I wanted to come in here and I wanted to make some friends,” said Krukow while paraphrasing Snell. “And then the way you do that as a pitcher, especially a high price free agent, is you do well. He hasn’t done that.”
After his late start to the season, he has yet to pitch more than three outings in a row without facing injury.
The Seattle native is currently on his second IL stint this campaign, now dealing with a strained groin. Maybe he can finally pull things together when he’s back, but first he needs to focus on stringing together a few healthy outings.
