Rays' powerful bats no match for old friend Snell

SAN DIEGO -- The Rays hadn’t seen Blake Snell pitch like this since … well, since the last time they saw him pitch.

In Snell’s first outing against the team that drafted and developed him -- “taught me how to be a man,” he said -- the left-hander was every bit as dominant as he was for Tampa Bay in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series.

Snell struck out 12 batters over six scoreless innings while holding the Rays to two hits, handing them a 2-0 loss at Petco Park on Saturday afternoon. Snell ended Tampa Bay’s three-game winning streak and made a normally relentless lineup look languid.

The Rays were shut out for only the fourth time this season.

“[Snell] threw the ball really, really well,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Most of us have seen Blake throw very well. That was a very strong outing. He had everything going. The first inning -- the stuff, the strike-throwing -- kind of had that feeling of, ‘Uh oh.’ He backed it up for his six innings of work.”

Cash, of course, will be forever tied to Snell as baseball history is retold. The manager lifted Snell after 5 1/3 innings in that decisive Game 6 against the Dodgers with the Rays holding a 1-0 lead. Los Angeles instantly went on the attack against the bullpen and came away with the championship.

Snell went only two-thirds of an inning longer on Saturday while throwing 102 pitches (68 strikes), but this time the bullpen kept the shutout intact. He acknowledged it was a particularly satisfying win.

“A lot of those guys were in it from the day I walked in the door as a professional,” Snell said of facing the Rays. “So yeah, emotional. It’s cool to pitch in front of people that have supported you, raised you, challenged you. There’s just a lot that they’ve done that made me who I am today.”

With Tampa Bay, Snell was an All-Star and the American League Cy Young Award winner in 2018. Traded to San Diego two months after that ‘20 World Series, Snell has since gone 18-22 with a 3.72 ERA. But on Saturday, he was top-shelf Snell.

“He was doing what he was doing the year he won the Cy Young. It was tough to hit,” said Yandy Díaz, who doubled to right-center field against his former teammate in the third inning, the only extra-base hit among the three knocks the Rays totaled for the day.

And just what was Snell doing? Throwing 98 mph fastballs up in the zone, dotting the outside corner with low sliders and tossing curveballs and changeups to keep Tampa Bay off-balance. Snell induced 23 swings and misses.

“Where he was throwing -- for the most part top-of-the-zone fastballs -- not many hitters in baseball can handle that,” Cash said. “Then the complementary pitches, the changeup -- you have to respect it, you have to honor it. And he threw all of them for strikes. Every offspeed pitch, it seemed like he was placing it where he needed to. Just a really good performance by Blake.”

Even with all that, the Rays were in range of handing Snell a no-decision, just like he got in Game 6. Zach Eflin bounced back from his shortest outing with Tampa Bay (4 2/3 innings vs. Oakland last Tuesday) to hold up his end of a pitchers’ duel.

Not until the fifth inning, when the Padres put bunts into play on three straight pitches, did Eflin, who struck out five, allow a run. Per Elias Sports Bureau, no MLB team had bunted on three straight pitches since the Royals did it on Aug. 31, 2019.

Ha-Seong Kim dropped a perfect bunt down the third-base line to reach base. Trent Grisham then popped up a bunt that landed behind the pitcher’s mound -- an accidentally ideal placement that resulted in a base hit. And slugger Fernando Tatis Jr. dropped a surprise sacrifice bunt to move the runners up.

“It caught me off guard,” Eflin said of the bunts. “I think it caught everyone off guard. … It’s part of the game. They needed to get something going, and they did.”

A sacrifice fly by Juan Soto and an infield chopper by Manny Machado produced the two-run lead, which Snell and the Padres’ bullpen made hold up. Eflin, who opened his Rays tenure with an 8-1 mark, took his second straight loss despite allowing only four hits and the two runs over six innings.

“Ultimately, I felt like it was a good rebound outing for me,” Eflin said.