Reigning Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell threw the league’s 3rd no hitter of the season Friday vs. the Cincinnati Reds, striking out 11 batters along the way.
Snell, who’s had an uneven season to date with a 1-3 record and 4.29 ERA, needed 114 pitches to navigate his way through the Reds lineup, threw 78 of his pitches for strikes on the night, tossing the first complete game of his Major League career.
“You’re so amped up in the last inning there, to be able to make that throw when you are trying to throw it as hard as you can to the plate,” Snell told reporters after the contest. “I’m still kind of in shock. I need to go home and let it sink in. I haven’t really processed the game.”
“That’s as nervous as I had been in a long time,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “I wanted that for him so bad. If anybody has the stuff to throw a no-hitter, it’s Blake Snell.”
Reports indicate that the lefty began to develop a blister at some point in the 7th inning, causing both manager and pitcher alike to engage in a game of cat and mouse as to how much longer he could go.
“Seventh inning I felt a little tired, and then I kind of looked at the scoreboard and that’s when I noticed it, and I said, ‘You better wake up,'” Snell said postgame.
Despite having a decorated pro career, there were some inside baseball circles who believed Snell wasn’t amongst the game’s elite due to his inability to go deep into games. Until last night, the 31 year old had never even completed the 8th inning at the MLB level. This despite the fact that he’d started 202 games since breaking into the professional ranks.
However Friday night went a long way towards changing those perceptions, while simultaneously adding another entry onto Snell’s career highlight reel.
The no hitter is the 18th in Giants history, with the last one coming back in 2015 courtesy of Chris Heston.
San Francisco continues their series against the Reds tonight at 7:15pm ET.
Photo: Mobilus In Mobili. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.