Since the start of spring training, Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell has faced nothing but questions about his lingering shoulder injury.
This even includes his Twitch video-game streams –– where one of his recent exchanges with a commenter went viral on social media this week.
When told by the user to “get off the injured list,” Snell answered by sarcastically tapping the body part that has sidelined him for the start of the season.
“Hey, shoulder,” Snell said. “Don’t have inflammation. Don’t pitch in the postseason, when your shoulder didn’t feel good. Don’t try to win a World Series. Oh, you can’t start the season because your shoulder still hurts from pitching?”
“What the f— you want me to do?” he added.
If that was a moment of frustration for the two-time Cy Young Award winner, then Saturday afternoon brought a long-awaited reprieve.
For the first time this season, Snell faced hitters in a session of live batting practice. It was only 15 pitches over one simulated inning, but it served as an important milepost in his recovery nonetheless.
“I was looking forward to it a lot,” Snell said afterward. “I was very excited coming to the field today. Like, I finally get to throw and pitch and see where I’m at. See if I’m good, bad. Kind of figure myself out.”
Snell has done much self-reflection this offseason, making changes to his training program (hello, Pilates) and his diet (goodbye, junk food) as he enters his 11th big-league season.
The one thing that required patience, however, was his fatigued left shoulder –– which gave him pain all winter following his 34-inning workload in the playoffs.
“He’s getting antsy,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I think that he’s just excited because he feels strong, he feels healthy.”
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Indeed, Snell has felt his shoulder improving since early in camp. However, after the way his debut season with the Dodgers started last year –– when the $182 million free-agent signing tried pitching through early-season shoulder discomfort, only to spend four months on the IL –– he and the team opted for a more conservative approach.
The hope now is that Snell will start accelerating his ramp-up. On Saturday, the left-hander’s stuff looked sharp, helping him record outs in three straight at-bats against Tommy Edman (who is working through his own elongated rehab process) and Alex Call.
Snell will likely toss several more live BP sessions to build up to three to four innings, then go out on a minor-league rehab assignment.
If all goes well, he could be back in the majors before the end of May. After making only 11 regular-season starts last year, he could still potentially double that total this term.
“I’ve done a lot of different things than I did last year when I was in this position,” he said. “I’m just very excited about how I feel right now, where I’m at, getting back to some normalcy again.”
Snell was also light-heartedly pressed on his Twitch interaction Saturday, joking that “I should watch my language a little bit, but outside of that it was pretty true.”
Asked if his shoulder is a good listener, Snell laughed again –– hopeful that, before too long, all shoulder-related questions, both in-person and online, will finally cease.
“I think so,” he said. “I’ve been listening to it, so to finally be able to talk [with today’s outing] back was good.”
