Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
He’s Gonna Break
[Ed. If you are looking for the next Littlefield's Looneys, 2004, it will appear sometime tomorrow, probably after the game. We apologize for the delay.]
And he knows it.
Ian Snell admitted after last night’s game that he is beginning to become a little bit insane, telling reporters after the game that, “I’m starting to break. I’m getting stressed out.” The team’s losing is literally driving Snell to insanity. He is a player that thrives not necessarily on winning, but on giving his all and hating losing like Jordan Staal hates border patrol.
It’s been obvious for about four starts that Snell just doesn’t have the same stuff he had at the beginning of the season and about two starts that he’s going just a little bit nuts. The issues really started with his statements immediately following the Rockies’ game in which he irrationally stated that multiple players were stealing signs and then said that he was going to kill the person that was doing so. After this last start, though, Snell was all over the place.
He blamed his defense, himself, and stated that his family calls the team losers. The Pirates definitely need to either start winning immediately or risk losing Snell to an Oliver Perez-esque mental breakdown (remember, Perez went from the praying mantis to the gopher-ball kid). Take, for instance, one of Snell’s quotes after the game and one of Perez’s quotes when talking about his Pittsburgh experience.
Snell: It’s starting to get to the point where you think too much, and I don’t want to get to that point.
Perez: I was just thinking too much those last two years in Pittsburgh. I was putting too much pressure on myself.
It seems like Snell is the one putting the pressure on himself right now, and it is the responsibility of the team (on both offense and defense) and the organization to alleviate him of it.
Maybe he’ll change his name again.
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