TORONTO — DURING THE seventh inning of Major League Baseball postseason games he watched as a child, Blake Snell would stand, put his hand over his heart and sing in the living room of his home in Shoreline, Washington. There was something wondrous about the whole spectacle — the entire stadium out of their seats, belting out «God Bless America» in unison, and the pitcher smack dab in the middle of it — that burrowed into Snell's head, never to be forgotten, every start an opportunity to become the sort of pitcher he once watched and revered.