Dominant Blake Snell tosses 10th no-hitter in SF Giants history to beat Reds

Snell threw a career-high 114 pitches and walked three batters but struck out 11 to beat the Reds, 3-0.

CINCINNATI — The scent of Champagne soaked the visitors’ clubhouse inside Great American Ballpark late Friday night, 11 glass bottles in the middle of the room signifying there had been something to celebrate.

For about a month now, any ballpark Blake Snell has stepped foot in has been on no-hitter alert until it’s not.

This time, in front of 28,075 on a muggy Friday evening after an hourlong rain delay, there was no reason to stand down. No seeing-eye singles. No mistakes to be taken advantage of. Barely even a first-pitch ball to be looked at. No hits at all, and hardly any contact to speak of, period.

Inserted as a defensive replacement the inning prior, right fielder Mike Yastrzemski leaped and raised both arms in the air as he gloved Elly De La Cruz’s line drive into the right-center field gap for the 27th and final out, before the real celebration began with a mob on the mound that eventually migrated behind clubhouse doors.

Striking out 11 batters and walking three, Snell dotted the strike zone with a fastball that touched 98 mph, buckled hitters’ knees with a bendy breaking ball and mixed in a darting changeup over a career-high 114 pitches to complete the 10th no-hitter and beat the Reds, 3-0.

“I’m still kind of shocked,” Snell said.

It was the first no-hitter by a Giants pitcher since Chris Heston beat the Mets on June 9, 2015, and the first time in 202 career starts that Snell had completed eight innings, let alone gone the distance without allowing a hit.

And it almost felt inevitable.

“There comes a point in time where it’s kind of destiny for him,” said manager Bob Melvin, “especially the way he’s been throwing.”

Since returning from a groin strain on July 9, Snell has allowed two runs on eight hits in 33 innings with 41 strikeouts. He blanked the Blue Jays for five frames in his first start back, took a no-hit bid into the seventh in their final game before the All-Star break and set a career-high with 15 strikeouts over six scoreless his last time out against the Rockies.

“He’s had the same stuff the past five starts,” said catcher Patrick Bailey, who threw both his arms around Snell in front of the mound after the last out. “That’s the crazy part. It felt like it could have been any of these games. That’s how dominant he’s been.”

An ERA that stood at 9.51 when he landed on the injured list for a second time June 2 has been halved in the span of five starts, to 4.29.

“I knew it was going to turn around,” Snell said. “I didn’t know it was going to be what I just did the last two games.”

Snell’s near-no-no two weeks ago was on Yastrzemski’s mind as the ball left De La Cruz’s bat in his direction.

“He had another bid at it and kind of just fell short on a little bleeder to left,” said Yastrzemski, who took over for Jerar Encarnacion at the start of the eighth inning. “I was just really pulling for him as much as you can and once I went into the game I was hoping to just breeze through it, but if there was an opportunity to make a play, then it was do whatever’s necessary at that point.”

As his teammates circled around him, Snell kept his eyes locked on his batterymate, thinking back to a conversation they had soon after he arrived in Arizona during the final week of spring training.

“I was just like, ‘I told you were were going to do it! I told you we were going to do it!’,” Snell said. “We kept talking about how, well, I told him at the end of spring training when I first got here, ‘I haven’t gone nine; we need to go nine this year.’”

“We were joking about it the other day,” Bailey said. “‘We’re going to go nine shutty together.’ I think one of us was like, ‘Why not just throw a no-hitter?’ It worked out perfectly. For him to just keep getting better and better was really cool to see.”

It wasn’t the first time Snell didn’t allow a hit in a start, but it was the first time he took his no-hit bid to the finish line.

On his way to winning the Cy Young with the Padres last season, Melvin pulled Snell after seven no-hit innings and 104 pitches; in 2021, he also departed despite not surrendering a hit through seven innings with his pitch count at 107. In 201 previous career starts, he had never completed more than 7⅔ innings.

“They can’t say it anymore. Complete game, shutout, no-hitter. Leave me alone,” Snell said. “You know how good that feels? Just did it. Leave me alone.”

Through seven Friday night, Snell was at 96 pitches. He required a career-high 114 to go all the way, 78 for strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to all but four batters he faced, including the first 13 to come to the plate through the first four innings. He fell behind 1-0 to the first batter of the fifth inning, Tyler Stephenson, and temporarily lost his command, issuing a pair of walks, but still escaped unscathed thanks to Casey Schmitt’s quick instincts to double up Stephenson after gloving a line drive.

The official definition of hard contact is when a ball is struck at 95 mph or harder, and the line drive off Jeimer Candelario’s bat that found the back of Schmitt’s mitt at second base was tied for the Reds’ second hardest-hit ball of the night — at 94.5 mph. Only De La Cruz’s flyout to end the game was struck harder.

Schmitt fired the ball to first base just in time to beat Stephenson diving back to the bag.

“The only (pitch) they barreled up was the one to Schmitty,” said shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald, who contributed a team-high three hits, including his 10th home run of the season, and drove in a pair of runs. “I faced (Snell) last year. It’s almost impossible. You really have to guess up there.”

Between Snell’s effort and Logan Webb’s complete game shutout Wednesday to beat the A’s — the team’s first back-to-back shutouts by its starting pitchers since Jason Schmidt and Liván Hernández in 2002 — the Giants’ bullpen has gotten, as Snell amusingly observed, “a three-day vacation. I didn’t see that coming.”

It has also meant the Giants have required minimal offensive contributions to start a two-game winning streak, living up to the high expectations leveled on them when president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi declared their starting rotation the best in baseball following the trade deadline.

With three runs on nine hits, the Giants matched their scoring output from their past two games against Oakland.

While newcomers Mark Canha and Encarnacion made their debuts, it was the Giants’ class of rookies who continued to provide the offensive spark. Casey Schmitt opened a 1-0 lead with a 420-foot solo shot in the second inning, and Fitzgerald singled home Marco Luciano to make it 2-0.

Finishing with three hits, Fitzgerald padded the Giants lead with a second home run — his 10th of the season — to make it 3-0 in the seventh.

“I didn’t even realize it until the bottom of the sixth. I looked up and there were no hits,” Fitzgerald said. “I was more focused on him rather than myself, so I think that helped me a little bit. And then after I lined out in the ninth, I ran back to the dugout because I was like, ‘Let’s go. Let’s get this for him.’”

Notable

It was Snell’s first time pitching at Great American Ballpark, checking off his 30th and final active major-league ballpark.

Up next

After getting an extra day of rest, LHP Kyle Harrison (6-4, 3.69) takes the ball against another former top prospect, RHP Hunter Greene (7-4, 2.97). First pitch is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. PT on FOX.