World Series 2025: The evolution of Dodgers ace Blake Snell - ESPN

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.

«All I've ever wanted to do is just be on the mound in the seventh inning of a playoff game when 'God Bless America' is playing,» Snell said. «That's the coolest thing to me. I've been chasing that for 20-something years. Twenty years. And then in Milwaukee, I finally got to feel that.»

Eleven days ago at American Family Field, during Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, everything came together in one near-perfect night. For the previous two decades, Snell had built himself from skinny project to big leaguer. From main character of one of the most controversial decisions in modern baseball to the 22nd player ever to capture multiple Cy Youngs. From naive prospect to learner with a voracious appetite to the man ready to take all of those experiences and make «God Bless America» a reality. And there he was, atop the mound, the criticism that he couldn't go deep into games forever eradicated by one of the great pitching performances in postseason history.

As Snell prepares to start Game 1 of the World Series for the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, he does so coming off eight innings of one-hit, walk-free, 10-strikeout