The Braves lost Spencer Strider’s debut and the game Mitchell Parker started against them, and will hope the second time’s the charm on both counts
If at first you don’t succeed… don’t worry, because the baseball schedule will line things up for you to get another crack at it (most of the time).
The Braves didn’t win Spencer Strider’s first start. The outing was kind of a mixed bag for the man we sometimes call Quadzilla — he returned (yay) and looked like his old, dominant self in the first inning (also yay). But he was understandably somewhat rusty afterwards, especially early in each subsequent frame command-wise, and ultimately gave up a homer to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to seal the team’s fate in a 3-1 defeat. Strider had a 5/1 K/BB ratio in the game in five-plus innings, but also hit a batter and didn’t really manage contact. There’s nowhere to really go but up for him, now that he’s back from a hamstring ailment that resulted in essentially a monthlong gap between his return to the big league mound and what will be his second start of 2025.
The Braves also didn’t win their game against Mitchell Parker and the Nationals last week, with that game being the only one of four they dropped. Parker actually had his second-best start by xFIP and best start by FIP on the year — a 6/2 K/BB ratio, and his fifth consecutive start without a homer allowed. But. the Braves took advantage of the Nats’ porous defense to plate four runs and chase Parker after 4 2/3… only for their own defensive miscues and some awful relief pitching to sink them in an eventual 5-4 loss.
On the season, Parker has a weird 105 ERA-, 91 FIP-, and 130 xFIP-. He’s avoided the longball, having yielded just one all season, but his K/BB ratio is a mess, with three starts already where he’s walked more guys than he’s struck out. He was a lot better at the K/BB thing while still running a below-average HR/FB rate last year en route to 2.4 fWAR, so the Nats are probably somewhat disappointed in his pitching to date, but at least he has his results to tide them over.
As a final note, the Nats pounded the snot out of the ball against the Braves in Atlanta, often with little to show for it, and honestly, this team’s offensive aptitude is nothing to sneer at in the early going this season. The Nats have the league’s tenth-highest xwOBA, just above the Braves. That said, they aren’t really standouts in any of their component batting pieces, and actually have an odd thing going where they have the league’s second-lowest z-swing rate, but a top-ten chase rate, which will probably bite them eventually. Still, they’ve been raking in May (sixth in xwOBA), so it’s not exactly the traditional pushover Nats’ lineup that Strider will be facing at this point in time.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Tuesday, May 20, 6:45 P.M. ET
Location: Nationals Park, Washington, DC
TV: FanDuel Sports Network South / Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan