SAN FRANCISCO — Blake Snell winced as he fired his 99th pitch Sunday afternoon, and after walking off the mound with the head of the Giants’ training staff, appears to be headed for his second stint on the injured list in as many months with the team.
Snell, 31, left his start against the Yankees after 4⅔ innings and was diagnosed with tightness in his left groin.
The Giants will have a better sense of his outlook after he undergoes imaging on Thursday, but Snell said the injury felt “the same” as the groin strain that knocked him out for a month earlier this season, and manager Bob Melvin added, “I don’t know how it’s not an IL.”
Making only his sixth start of the season, Snell was tagged for three runs on five hits and struck out seven, lowering his ERA to 9.51 from 10.42.
Originally signing his two-year, $62 million free-agent contract on March 19, Snell didn’t debut until the fourth series of the season and made only three starts before landing on the IL for the first time. He made another three starts before suffering his latest injury and, despite the results, had been encouraged.
“It’s definitely a bummer,” Snell said. “Frustrating. But you’ve gotta look to what’s next, attack that and get back on the field.”
Entering his start Sunday, Snell said, “I was very confident.
“I kind of just knew what was going to happen. You’re trying to find a feeling. And you’re trying to find just consistency in your day-to-day. A lot of good stuff’s been happening the last couple weeks where I was like, ‘OK, it’s coming.’ … The confidence, understanding how to make the adjustments, just a lot was getting better. So I was really excited for what was to come. We’ll get there. There’s been a lot that I’ve learned this year that is going to help me get back quicker and start dominating. It sucks that this happened, but it happened. We’ll face it head on and attack it and get back.”
Snell was particularly happy with the command of his fastball and the shape of his curveball, which he used to record 10 of his 14 swings and misses. The one he wishes he could have back was the heater to Soto that caught a little too much of the plate and got whacked for a 430-foot home run that put the Yankees up 1-0.
“I thought he was making progress every time, and certainly this one, too,” Melvin said of Snell, who has yet to complete five innings or allow fewer than three earned runs in any of his starts. “Fifth inning was probably going to be his last inning regardless, but he struck out seven against a really good lineup.”
Of more concern to Snell and the Giants has to be the root cause of an ailment that has cropped up twice in two months.
The issues with his left leg, which he uses to push off the rubber, have bothered Snell for three or four years, he said. It didn’t affect him during his Cy Young campaign in 2023 but knocked him out for three weeks at the end of 2021 and a month at the start of 2022.
“I use my back leg a lot. It’s kind of everything with who I am,” Snell said. “It’s gotta be something with that. It’s groin, back leg, as I drive. We’ll look at it. But definitely got to add something strengthening wise that I haven’t been doing that can get the muscle even more prepared for 100 pitches per game, more than that.”
The Giants’ pitching was already on fumes, with Tuesday’s starter listed as TBD and their bullpen throwing the most innings in the majors last month. Keaton Winn, who missed the past two weeks with forearm tightness, is supposed to begin a rehab assignment this week.
