Blake Snell Reveals Hilarious Pre-Game Routine With No Fans at Yankee Stadium

Despite their best efforts, cardboard cutouts haven't proven to be quite as intimidating as real baseball fans. They may not be too noticeable on a TV broadcast, but playing in an empty stadium has to be a pretty strange experience for players.

On the road at Yankee Stadium, Tampa Bay Rays ace Blake Snell has been doing his best to simulate playing in front of a real crowd. How? By trash talking himself.

#Rays Snell said to make sure he had the "authentic" feel of playing at Yankee Stadium he told himself he sucked when he was warming up since no fans were there to yell it at him
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) August 19, 2020

Snell and the Yanks appear to be developing a bit of a rivalry, so it's no surprise that he hears it from fans in New York any time he's warming up.

The simulated heckling seemed to help on Tuesday, as Snell opened the game with a strong scoreless 4 innings before getting tagged for 3 earned runs in the fifth. The Rays' offense had his back too, as they were already up 6-0 when Snell conceded those runs, and he went on to earn his second win of the season.

Insulting yourself is a pretty strange pregame ritual, but it seems to do the trick.

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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.