Saw Snell Pitch Today

Snell had a nice outing on paper today -- 4 IP, 4 K, 0 R, 2 H. He threw 53 pitches and 36 were for strikes.

But before you start raising your optimism flag, realize that 2 of his K's were against a minor league vet who Snell pitched against last year in the International League, the third was against a solid AA kid, and the fourth against wind machine Ben Broussard. So, not really as impressive as the linecard indicates. But, he issued no walks and he pounded a *very* liberal strike zone all 4 innings.

Further, five of the eight balls put in play against Snell were not just hammered, they were crushed. Without a brisk 20 mph wind blowing in, two, possibly three, of them would have easily gone for home runs in any park in baseball. Joe Randa almost had his head taken off with a Debois rocket blast his way that Joe just got the corner of his glove on and it bounced off and ran up to the LF corner.

So, while Snell looked good on paper against a limited Indian squad, he really didn't fool anyone except minor league guys and a strike out machine.

Notes:

Heard today Vogelsong might be being shopped. One long-time fan said he heard Ryan might get released. *ouch*

Maholm and Duke are working on changes Colborn has suggested. Duke has a new cutter he is flashing and Maholm new mechanics of sort. So don't look at their stat line too close just yet.. they are in tinker mode.