The Braves fell in the first game of a critical May series with the Philadelphia Phillies, but it was to no fault of Spencer Strider, who was making back-to-back starts at the major-league level for the first time in 14 months.
A lot of the talk around the 26-year-old right-hander will be about his velocity, and it should be in some respect. This was one of the hardest throwers in all of baseball before he underwent InternalBrace surgery in April of last year, and to this point, we haven’t seen him hum it around 100 MPH since returning.
That didn’t change on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. Spencer Strider sat around 95-96 for most of the evening — right in line where he’s been all year. However, he was able to have a lot of success, striking out seven batters and allowing just one hit over 4.2 innings. Unfortunately, that one hit — a double off the right-center field wall — led to a run, which was all the Phillies needed to win, thanks to yet another pathetic offensive performance from the Braves’ lineup.
But it was still undoubtedly a positive step forward for Strider, who was pleased with his progress.
“You’ve got to be honest with yourself in every way,” Strider said, via Mark Bowman of MLB.com. “I’m not trying to get back [immediately]. I think it has to be a present focus on being the best version of myself tomorrow and the next week.”
There will continue to be questions about whether Strider can have the same kind of success he had previously with a fastball that sits in the high-90s. On Tuesday, a night when he didn’t have anywhere close to his best control, he eased some of those concerns.
“He’s still pretty nasty, you know,” Max Kepler of the Phillies said. “Even though he’s not throwing 100 anymore — he’s throwing 95, 96 — he’s still doing his thing.”
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Photo: Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire
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