“No-hit stuff” has long been baseball speak for a pitcher with amazing stuff — one who has the ability to dominant hitters, making them look foolish multiple times through the order. Two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell, one of just seven pitchers to ever win a Cy Young in both leagues, has long had the ability to flash no-hit stuff on any given night.
That’s never even been questioned. What held him back from throwing a no-hitter for years was inconsistency and the inability to be efficient enough to work the late innings. Snell’s most famous outing, in fact, is so widely known because he was pulled.
Remember Game 6 of the 2020 World Series? The Rays were facing elimination and Snell was working on a one-hit shutout through 5 1/3 innings. Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes singled and Snell was yanked by manager Kevin Cash. Mookie Betts then doubled off Nick Anderson before a wild pitch tied the game and a grounder gave the Dodgers the lead. They’d win the World Series a few innings later.
Snell has long been able to dominate through the middle innings like that. He’d previously been pulled from three different starts with zero hits allowed. in the fifth inning or later. Two of those outings he was pulled with no hits allowed through seven! In fact, per CBS Sports research, only Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax have ever had more starts with seven-plus innings and zero hits.
Would you believe this? In 202 career starts, Snell has allowed zero or one hit 23 times. He’s allowed two or fewer hits 50 times. Fifty! Out of 202!
We’ve seen Snell go through stretches where he looks like the best pitcher in baseball:
- In 2018, Snell had a 1.25 ERA in his last 16 starts. He had a 1.89 ERA for the whole season.
- In 2019, he had a five-start stretch with a 1.78 ERA.
- In his last eight starts in 2021, Snell had a 1.83 ERA.
- In 2022, Snell had five-start stretches with an ERA of 0.94 twice. Then he closed with a 0.72 ERA in his last four starts.
- Last season, Snell had a 5.40 ERA through nine starts. He would post a 1.20 ERA in his final 23 starts.
He’s on a heater again. Snell didn’t sign until late in spring training and it was evident in his terrible start to this season. Then he hit the injured list. Since his return, he’s been, well, the Good Blake Snell we’ve seen so often in his career in stretches.
It’s been five starts. He’s allowed eight hits, two runs and 10 walks while striking out 40 in 33 innings. That’s a 0.55 ERA and 0.55 WHIP. He’s doing the thing again where he looks like the absolute best pitcher in baseball.
What had been missing before Friday night, though, was Snell’s late-inning work. He had never finished the eighth and, since he has never worked in relief in the regular season, had never thrown a pitch in the ninth inning.
Once it got late enough to see that 0 in the “H” column for the Reds and we all saw Snell’s pitch count, that sinking feeling returned. He’s gonna get pulled from a no-hitter again. Sigh. There’s no reason to dance around it: it’s a bummer to watch a pitcher get pulled before he has a chance to make history. Look, we all understand that sometimes the workload means the pitcher shouldn’t be allowed to ruin his career for the sake of an individual feat; that’s why the manager makes the call, not the player. Still, it just feels like a gut punch as a fan when the opportunity to see history gets taken away, right? And it was going to happen with Snell for a fourth time. Instead …
Nope, not this time.
Snell finally finished his own game. He now has a complete game. And a shutout. And, best of all, his no-hit stuff finally came to fruition with an actual no-hitter.
