Snell continues dominance in final Giants road start vs. Royals originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
This is the Blake Snell that the Giants thought they were getting when they signed the two-time Cy Young Award winner to a hefty free-agent contract this past offseason.
With another strong outing, this time in a 2-0 win over a pretty strong Kansas City Royals lineup on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, the only real unknown about Snell is whether or not he plans to remain with the Orange and Black next season.
Snell hasn’t talked much about his future, and the subject didn’t come up after the lefty handcuffed the Royals while pitching San Francisco to its third shutout in its last six games.
It’s a topic that is sure to get a lot of attention in the coming weeks while the Giants brass tries to formulate a plan for the offseason.
Atop the list is whether or not to retain president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Bob Melvin, both of whom have contracts running through 2025 but nothing is guaranteed beyond that.
After that, whoever is running the show and calling the shots in the front office has to make a quick read on Snell and decide what to do.
Should he hit the free-agent market again, there’s no doubt that Snell will be a hot commodity. And it’s unlikely that he will wait as long to make a decision as he did a year ago when the pitcher didn’t sign a contract with the Giants until late in spring training.
That led to an unusually rough stretch for Snell, who lost his first three starts and didn’t earn his first victory until throwing a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 2.
He’s been a beast since then.
“I wish I could have done it sooner,” Snell told reporters following Sunday’s game. “I wish I was healthier. I wish I would have slowed down, listened to myself more. But it’s learning moments. Everything that happened, I’m happy about it. I learned a lot, I got better. I’m Just continuing to learn, continuing to grow.
“Results will go up and down and you’ll have good, bad, whatever. The more consistent I am, the more I learn, the more that I add (or) take away, to continue to be the best player I can be, that’s what excites me the most.”
Against the Royals, Snell certainly had flashes of the top-level pitcher he’s been.
Snell strung together six solid shutout innings, limiting the playoff-contending Royals to two hits and one walk. He had nine strikeouts, marking the sixth time in 20 starts that…