NEW YORK -- Blake Snell appeared to be on cruise control when he took the mound in the fifth inning of the Rays' eventual 8-4 loss to the Yankees on Wednesday.
The Rays' lefty had four scoreless innings in the rearview mirror. From the looks of things, he was well on his way to making everyone forget his familiar pattern of a lot of walks and an early hook.
Entering the game, Snell had only thrown 36.9 percent of his pitches in the strike zone, according to Statcast™. That ranked Snell in the bottom 20 percent of pitchers who have thrown at least 1,500 pitches since the start of 2016 (30th of 156).