Braves Spencer Strider Opens Up About Building Back Post-Surgery

Spencer Strider took a step in the right direction in his 13-strikeout, scoreless performance for the Atlanta Braves on Saturday. It was his first strong performance of the 2025 campaign, struggling in his first five starts of the season.

His command was better this time around and his velocity was sitting a bit higher. He averaged 96.2 mph on his fastball and it topped out at 98.1 mph. For reference, he averaged 94.8 mph on the pitch in his last previous start and topped out at 96.5 mph. Strider was also able to use his slider more effectively, getting more swing-and-misses. Seven of his 13 strikeouts came on the slider with most of them coming as his outing went on.

He's getting stronger with each start, but as he enters the post-surgery era of his career, he feels he will need to continually evaluate and address the needs that arise so he can be successful and stay healthy.

"As much as I'd like to move past that, I had elbow surgery a year ago. So, that's going to be a relevant factor whether I like it or not for the foreseable future. I think acknowledging those issues and reality is gonna be more helpful for me than trying to stubbornly push past it."

To be successful, it's going to require him to be in tune with his body and how things click for him during games.

"Just trying to be honest and objective with how I'm moving. Little things like how I'm holding command and mechanics inning to inning. Trying to solve those problems as they come up is gonna be big for me."

Saturday's start provided a good example for taking things inning by inning. As strong as it was, there were aspects of his game that he wasn't satified with.

"There's positives. There's negatives to every start. Things got a little inconsistent in the second half of the outing, so that's something to work on. I was sent out there to try to eat some more innings, so that's something I'd like to improve upon."

While he's not content with his still dominant outing, the precedent was set that he is able to make those adjustments. It's coming in time, and the calls to give him that time keep coming.

"I'm just big on the whole thing that he missed so much time. I think it takes a while to build back," Braves manager Brian Snitker said. "You just go to be patient with him, and he's doing everything right as he always does. I think it just takes time, but I think today, for me, was a big step forward."

The two talked after the sixth inning. Strider said he felt good to keep going, but Snitker was satisfied with his performance on the day. He said that if Strider delivers six innings regularly, then he's going to be where the team wants him to be post-surgery from an innings standpoint.

In time, he'll be able to get a longer leash. Right now, he continues to sit around that 90-pitch mark - he finished with 87 on the day. The win at least provides a confidence boost that it's not going to be doom and gloom for him for the remainder of the season. Before the end of the season, we can still expect him to be closer to his usual form, and perhaps even closer to being a better version of himself.

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