San Diego Padres: Blake Snell takes back ‘thank you’ to Boston Red Sox

Last year, the Boston Red Sox pulled off the year’s most surprising blockbuster trade when they sent Mookie Betts and David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers. At the time, then Tampa Bay Rays ace Blake Snell was more than enthusiastic about the deal.

Snell formally thanked the Red Sox for moving one of the game’s biggest stars out of the AL East. Well, now that Snell has found a new home with the San Diego Padres and once again shares a division with Betts, he doesn’t feel quite the same. In fact, Snell went on to rescind his ‘thank you’ to the Red Sox.

Blake Snell: ‘thank you’ to Boston Red Sox revoked

This fun story actually speaks to the awesome respect that Snell has for Betts, who is easily a top-five player in all of baseball. Why? Snell hasn’t had too much trouble facing off against Betts throughout his career.

Including the postseason, Betts and Snell have squared off against each other 32 different times. It’s not terribly one-sided, neither player can boast that they “own” the other, but Snell has performed relatively unscathed. In these 32 plate appearances and 27 official at-bats, Betts owns a .259/.344/.444 hitting line with one home run, six RBIs, two doubles, four walks, and five strikeouts.

To further add some perspective, Betts is a career .301/.373/.522 hitter, meaning Snell keeps the Dodgers superstar below all of his career averages. Betts can consider himself to “own” a few pitchers around baseball. For pitchers he’s faced at least 10 times, Betts owns a .750 batting average against Collin McHugh while he’s launched five home runs in just 11 at-bats against Danny Duffy.

Snell may not be a fan of pitching to Betts, but

he better get used to it. Once again this pair finds themselves as division rivals with the San Diego Padres and Dodgers scheduled to face each other 19 times during the regular season. Perhaps Snell is more worried about facing the entire lineup of the defending World Series champs.