Nice: the Braves had an awesome walkoff win in their home opener.
Not-so-nice: Spencer Strider struggled through his start.
Does not even approach the galaxy in which “nice” is located:
Strider’s elbow was bothering him. He’ll get a MRI tomorrow
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) April 6, 2024
Naturally, we’ll all wait with bated breath for good news that Strider’s elbow is perfectly fine, but we’ve also all heard this story play out before. Elbows are bad news, MRIs are bad news, really everything associated with throwing a baseball seems to be bad news.
Strider was demonstrably off his game today, and we’re not just talking about the 4/3 K/BB ratio and overall horrible outing here. His average fastball velocity fell below 96.0 mph for the first time in his career, the spin on his pitches was off by a veritable ton of rpm (that’s not a thing), and his slider’s break was severely diminished. Something was up, and apparently the something is “the source of all of your nightmares.”
Anyway, stay tuned. Maybe we’ll get good news. Sorry to post this so soon after what was a really exciting win.
