Good Stuff From Ian Snell

So Snell finally got that elusive first home win tonight, and he looked pretty good. He threw strikes, and he missed some bats. He also, which I was not aware of until after the game, had a no-hitter through 4 2/3 innings. So that’s cool.

He had command of his fastball, which is something that hasn’t been working for him much lately, and that was big for him tonight. The only pitch he couldn’t locate was his change, as he only threw it for strikes 23% of the time. His slider was fantastic, as he not only missed some bats with it but also threw it for a strike 71% of the time. He threw it a lot too – 28 of them on the night, compared to 13 change ups and 52 fastballs. Oh yeah, and once again, he wasn’t getting the low strike calls.

He only racked up 8 swinging strikes – that’s not bad, but against the A’s I would generally hope for 10+. Part of that was due to him only going 6 innings, though. He ran into some trouble in the 6th, but he managed to consistently escape any serious damage, and because of that the results were good. His line was: 6 IP, 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts. I’d like to see the strikeouts go up, but that’s the only problem I can find. Good stuff, good win.

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