ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Beneath the off-white domed ceiling, adjacent to the artificial turf in left field, Blake Snell toed the rubber in Tropicana Field’s foul territory Friday afternoon and found a viewpoint novel even to the left-hander who called this ballpark home for the first five years of his big-league career.
For the first time, Snell pitched off the visitor’s bullpen mound for his routine between-starts throwing session. Consider it preparation for another new experience for the two-time Cy Young winner set to come Sunday, when Snell takes the mound between the foul lines here for the first time in road grays.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” Snell said after making his way from the bullpen mound to a scrum of about a dozen local reporters in front of the third-base dugout.
When he gets the ball in the Giants’ series finale against the Rays, it will be his first start at Tropicana Field since the Rays traded him to San Diego after the 2020 season. The sterile environs treated him well, going 23-12 with a 2.51 ERA in 50 career starts for the home team, and he described it as a “very comfortable” place to pitch.
“I was raised through the system, so when I got here there was so much love and care for me and attention (paid) to me that they made this place feel like home,” Snell said. “I’m excited to see what it feels like Sunday. Probably will feel the same way. I really can’t wait.”
It will be only Snell’s second start against the organization that drafted and developed him into a Cy Young winner since manager Kevin Cash made the controversial decision to pull him from the sixth inning of Game 6 of the 2020 World Series.
Holding a 1-0 lead through five innings, Snell’s 73rd pitch of the game turned out to be his final in a Rays uniform. It was a one-out single to Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes, prompting Cash to go to his bullpen, which proceeded to blow the lead and, ultimately, the series.
In the aftermath, Snell said on a podcast that it felt like “we really just handed them the World Series,” but asked to reflect again four years later, Snell said on Friday that he had “nothing but love” for the Rays organization and that when it comes to Cash, “his job’s to manage. My job is to play. I respect him.”
Manager Bob Melvin remembers Snell’s first start against his former club because he was on the right side.
Hosting the Rays at Petco Park last June, Snell racked up a dozen strikeout victims over six shutout innings in a 2-0 win, kicking his Cy Young campaign into high gear. Snell took a 2-6 record and a 3.78 ERA into that start, then went 14-5 with a 1.30 ERA the rest of the way.
“I was talking to Kevin Cash before that game about it, and he was feeling like, I hope he doesn’t get off to a good start here because when he does, it’s pretty good,” Melvin said. “He went on quite a roll after that. … I know he’s really excited about coming back here.”
The fact that Cash and pitching coach Kyle Snyder will be in the opposite dugout only provides more motivation for Snell. Cash, the longest-tenured active manager in the majors, was only in his second season at the helm when Snell was a rookie in 2016. He described Snyder, who guided him from being selected the 52nd overall out of Shoreline (Wash.) High School in 2011 to making his major-league debut five and a half years later, as “like a second father.”
“I could go on and on,” Snell said, listing off the figures who helped him become the pitcher he is today. “I’ve pitched in front of them so many times. They supported me all the way throughout. Being able to pitch in front of them is such an amazing feeling.”
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That comfort level Snell was never able to fully recapture in three seasons in San Diego, the final two coming under Melvin.
Although the trade brought him some 3,000 miles closer to home, Snell also had to learn a new city, new coaching staff, new teammates, new rules and routines — all for the first time — without his choosing. Snell was two years removed from his first Cy Young campaign in 2018 and still had three years of team control remaining.
“There’s so many more experiences that I had with San Diego that I couldn’t get (in Tampa). Just because of the dynamics, the teams,” Snell said. “I felt like when I left here I was very developed and I thought it was going to be very easy to transition to the Padres and that team. And that was difficult. I’ve learned so much from then to where now being a Giant, I feel even more comfortable being the player that I am and what I need to do everyday, where to go.”
In San Francisco, where he signed a two-year, $62 million deal in March, it has been a smoother transition.
“It just feels like he’s been really comfortable here from the very beginning,” Melvin said.
