SAN FRANCISCO — Some major-league players will use a hand truck after boxing up their lockers at the end of the season. Blake Snell appeared in need of a forklift Saturday afternoon. Snell, a noted sneakerhead and cleats collector, stood underneath a tower of cardboard boxes so tall that they might have violated building codes.
His Giants locker was mostly cleaned out. His cleats were all packed up. He’d laced them for the last time this season.
Advertisement Snell, who intends to opt out of a $30 million salary and test free agency again this winter, scratched himself from his scheduled start on Saturday. The Giants announced late Friday night that right-hander Tristan Beck would take the ball in Snell’s place against the St. Louis Cardinals .
The late scratch punctuated a remarkably odd season that involved the use of every shifted keystroke: question marks for a first half defined by injuries and inconsistency, exclamation points for a second half that might have been even more dominant than his Cy Young Award-winning run the previous season with the San Diego Padres , dollar signs for the $32 million that the Giants paid him to make just 20 starts, and perhaps a few more — #@&*% should cover it — for the frustration felt by a front office and coaching staff tasked with managing a player who was capable of so much brilliance yet came with an annoyance of special instructions attached to him. “Sure, we would have liked him to (start on Saturday),” said Giants .