On Monday Atlanta Braves’ fans finally had the chance to see what many of them had been waiting for as Spencer Strider made his spring training debut against the Boston Red Sox after missing nearly all of the entire 2024 season due to elbow surgery after he was diagnosed with damage to his ulnar collateral ligament.
And while watching Strider take the mound for the first time in almost a full calendar year was good to see, his outing in which he struck out six batters and allowed no hits and no runs through 2.2 innings pitched, may have created even more excitement for the right-hand pitcher’s return to the Braves’ starting rotation.
On Tuesday, Steak Shapiro and Abe Gordon shared their reactions to seeing the Strider performance to which Gordon suggested the Braves consider having Strider available in a different role to start the season. “Why not just use him as an elongated opener,” Gordon asked as he suggested the Braves avoid having Strider start the season with the Gwinnett Stripers.
“You carry one less bullpen arm, you still have your five-man starting rotation but one guy piggy backs off of Spencer Strider and instead of being an opener like we’ve seen the Rays use or the Tigers, who go one inning, he goes two or three,” Gordon suggested as he shared his thoughts why he believes Strider should be available for the start of the season.
“You can be just as cautious in the bigs as you can be in Gwinnett,” Shapiro said in response to Gordon’s suggestion, noting if the Braves kept Strider at the same pitch count, there should be no issue and Monday was a good enough sample size to support Gordon’s thoughts. “When Spencer Strider is dealing, it doesn’t matter if you’re facing murderers’ row with Shohei Ohtani and Mookie and Freddie Freeman, it doesn’t matter. Like his stuff is electric stuff,” Shapiro said.