Blake Snell, in his many years in the league, has become extremely good at becoming excellent at baseball at moments where no one expects him to. It happened in 2018, where he went from a mid-rotation strikeout artist to a Cy Young, then it happened in 2020 where he led his team to a World Series, then it happened last year where, after a few years of counting his money in San Diego, he put together an insane, completely unhittable campaign.
And then Scott Boras screwed him and he wound up scaring other teams and signing a short term deal with the Giants, his arm was still tired from last year resulting in terrible starts and a couple IL stints, and it looked like the Giants blew it signing him.
And then...Blake Snell comes back off the IL, and he proceeds to pitch better than he has in years. Solely because no one is expecting him to.
This no-hitter against the Reds was the pinnacle of this. Until last night's game, Snell had never pitched in the ninth. They always take him out after like 5 or 6. Kevin Cash famously lost a World Series because of this. Mostly to conserve his arm. We'll see if they had a point in the coming weeks. But Snell looked dominant as hell against a fairly tough Reds team, and silenced even their marquee players to give the Giants their first no-hitter since Chris Heston. He's not the first Giants pitcher to throw a no-hitter after already having won two Cy Young awards, but he's definitely cemented himself in Giants fans hearts for finally going the distance after some early struggles.
Snell is one of the defining pitchers of the last decade, regardless of his ebbs and flows. And to see him get a no-hitter in addition to his other accolades is pretty cool. Not every great pitcher can no-hit a team. In fact, a lot of terrible pitchers have no hit teams. One even pitched a perfect game last year. But Snell added another great accomplishment to his book, and that's pretty awesome.
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