Second-half Snell lifts Padres in Wild Card race

SAN FRANCISCO -- Next year, Blake Snell insists, he's going to start the season differently. He’s going to do something about those slow starts. You see, Snell has fallen into something of a pattern: He takes a few weeks, sometimes months, to put it all together. Then, once he does, he's untouchable.

And -- who knows? -- maybe next year will be different. At this point, frankly, who cares? Certainly not the Padres. Snell has found his second-half groove. He’s pitching like an ace again. The timing -- with the calendar turning to September and San Diego in the thick of a playoff race -- could not be any better.

Second-half Snell delivered another brilliant performance Tuesday night. He pitched six scoreless innings, while striking out eight in the Padres' 4-3 win over the Giants at Oracle Park. In the process, he lowered his second-half ERA to 2.51, nearly three full points lower than his first-half mark.

“I’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ve gotten better, and I feel like that’s why usually in the second half, I’m a different pitcher by then,” said Snell, who sports a 2.77 career mark after the All-Star break.

Save for one shaky outing against the Guardians last week (in which Snell believes he might have been tipping his pitches), he’s been the same electric version of himself that won a Cy Young Award in 2018 and dominated in the postseason in '19 and '20.

“It’s a little bit rare that you see a guy finish as strong as he does,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “The velocity is there. Usually guys are wearing down toward the end of the season. It’s pretty good timing.”

No kidding. The National League Wild Card race has been tightening. On Tuesday, Snell pitched the Padres to some breathing room. San Diego picked up a game on Milwaukee and Philadelphia (and, of course, San Francisco), its closest competition for the final postseason places.

Suddenly, the Padres have built a 2 1/2-game cushion on the Brewers and have moved within half a game of the Phillies for the second Wild Card spot. They might also have put the final nail in the Giants’ coffin this week, growing their lead to 9 1/2 games over their Northern California rivals.

“This is what we play for,” said center fielder Trent Grisham, who had two hits, including a two-run home run on Tuesday night. “The joy that we get from the game is about being in those high-pressure moments.”

Snell dueled with Giants right-hander Logan Webb for five scoreless innings apiece, before Josh Bell’s two-out RBI single broke the tie in the sixth. An inning later, with the game still hanging in the balance, Grisham swatted an opposite-field two-run blast that Melvin said “felt like a 10-run homer.”

The Padres tacked on another run in the frame on Manny Machado’s RBI double, then held on for dear life as the Giants clawed three back against their bullpen. Joc Pederson launched a two-run blast off substitute closer Nick Martinez in the ninth, before Martinez slammed the door on Snell’s victory.

Really, Snell wasn't at his dominant best. He struck out eight and allowed only four hits. But he also walked three and hit a batter. He was heavily reliant upon his fastball, without much command of his typically excellent breaking pitches.

“Weird outing,” Snell said. “The results were better than I felt. But the fastball was coming out really well.”

So he threw it often -- 74 percent of the time, to be exact. That’s his highest fastball percentage since joining the Padres and his highest in any start since September 2019. It wasn’t necessarily his plan going in, but ...

“Their swings tell me what to do,” Snell said. “... I pitch on feel. I read swings. I read things like how do they walk away? How do they approach the plate? There’s a lot more to it than just: ‘Oh, This is what the scouting report says.’ That’s what I saw them struggling with. I said, ‘Once you prove you can hit it, I’ll move on to a different attack plan.’”

The Giants never proved it. Snell’s 105th pitch of the night was a 96 mph fastball on the outside corner. Brandon Crawford swung under it for strike three, stranding the tying run in scoring position.

Snell spun and walked coolly off the mound. A big game with playoff implications late in the season?

He looked right at home.