New Seattle Mariners hurler Ian Snell made his much anticipated debut tonight against the Texas Rangers, working six innings of two run ball. When you take into account the fact that he was facing a powerful lineup like the one Texas has, his results were pretty good, but overall he was just OK.
Of his 84 pitches, 49 were strikes. That isn’t great, but I suspect, and hope, that part of that was nerves, and part of it had something to do with tightness due to apparently being hit in his last minor league start.
His average fastball velocity on the night was 91, average slider velocity was 77, and average changeup velocity was 82. That’s pretty good separation, but I’d like to see his fastball get up to 92 or 93 in his next couple of starts.
His slider, by the way, looked pretty nasty. He only threw it for strikes 28 percent of the time, but it accounted for the majority of his swinging strikes. My overall impression wasn’t great, but I didn’t expect him to come out and dominate. If he can work on his command a little bit, and get that fastball to the velocity I’ve heard it can get to, he should be exciting to watch down the stretch.
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