The San Diego Padres have a bit of a problem, and he answers to Blake Snell.
While the 30-year-old pitcher may have established himself as a reliable presence on the mound for San Diego in 2021 and 2022, this season hasn't proven as successful. Through seven starts this year, Snell has posted an ERA of 4.89 with a 1.57 WHIP and 39 strikeouts, and he's yet to have an outing where he allows less than two earned runs.'
Admittedly, these are a long way from bad stats, but they're also far from the ace-quality numbers that fans expected. Snell was selected over Yu Darvish as the Padres' Opening Day starter this season, and while the honor was there, the results just haven't come.
67 of Blake Snell's 101 pitches last night were for strikes (66.3%), which is his highest strike rate of the year pic.twitter.com/SBqP14r4v7