Don’t we all?
Friday night … let’s not talk about that one.
Mark, you just did …
Last night was a lot better with a fantastic pitching performance from Spencer Schwellenbach and the first grand slam of the year for the Atlanta Braves, hit by Sean Murphy. The Braves hope for more of that with Spencer Strider and a hopefully revitalized Braves lineup.
Strider has been much closer to our expectations for him in June. He’s striking out a third of the batters he’s faced, and the walk rate is back to manageable. His 2.97 xFIP during the month would make him a top 10 MLB starting pitcher over the course of the season, and that’s more of what we expect from the team’s ace, though Schwellenbach is starting to be that guy.
Strider, never known for having a wide repertoire, has been more stingy with throwing anything that’s not a fastball or a slider. 2024’s pitch selection:
And 2025:
He seems to be sort of abandoning the curve a bit while maintaining his paltry use of the change. It’s currently working, so we’ll let it ride.
Opposing Spencer is Ranger Suarez. Suarez is criminally underappreciated as a pitcher because he doesn’t do anything flashy. He gets a little more than 8 Ks per 9, and he keeps the walks down, something he’s really improved over the years. Along with both of these, he gets a ton of groundballs with a GB% over 50%. It ends up with an xFIP about a half run higher than Strider’s June, but that’s plenty good.
His Statcast backs that up.
As far as his pitches, he’s basically the anti-Strider …
The sinker isn’t much of a surprise here, but he does a good job of mixing everything up along with keeping it in the zone. It’s a hard combination of things to do, but he’s able to manage it quite well. Suarez is likely to look like one of those guys the team should crush, but he’s much better than that.
It would be great if they crushed him, though.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Sunday, June 29th, 1:35 p.m. EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
TV: FanDuel Sports South, Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan / La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM