Strider’s one-hit, scoreless outing for Braves in L.A. is encouraging sign

Strider was fantastic in his second outing of 2026, an outing that came on the heels of his season debut in Denver. More on that in a bit.

First, the discussion begins with Saturday’s six innings of scoreless, one-hit ball against the two-time defending world champions. Strider struck out eight, walked just two and gave up a single hit — a two-out base knock to Will Smith in the first inning.

Strider then retired eight in a row before walking Smith with one out in the fourth. Strider also issued a one-out walk in the fifth but nothing else.

The righty got five groundouts and five outs in the air. Max Muncy hit a 358-foot liner to right that Eli White made a running, leaping catch on in the second inning. No other balls were hit more than 300 feet off Strider, and only four were defined as hard hits.

But more encouraging than anything else, perhaps, was Strider averaging 96.4 mph and nearly touching 98 with his fastball. Is it the triple-digit fastball of old? No, but Strider threw his signature pitch more than 97 mph 11 times, one instance coming in the fifth and another in the sixth.

“Coming off the injury last year, it was tough sledding for him. He grinded through some stuff, but the ball was coming out (Saturday) like I remember Spencer of old,” Weiss said. “And the thing is, he held the velocity. We hadn’t seen that. We’ve seen some good velo in the first inning and then it kind of gets away from him. But to be able to hold the velocity like he did, that’s really encouraging.”

Strider threw his fastball 43 times against the Dodgers and his slider 32 times, his bread-and-butter pitches. What gives a window into who Strider may be now is his effective usage of a curveball.

That pitch was delivered 10 times Saturday: it was called a strike three times and swung-and-missed on twice.

“I wouldn’t say he’s reinvented himself, but I think the secondary stuff got better last year. He had to lean on it when the fastball wasn’t quite the same a year ago,” Weiss said. “Silver lining, right? He worked on the secondary stuff, he can land it at any time. I think in the end, he’s gonna have more weapons.”

Less than a week ago, Strider toed the rubber for the first time with the Braves this season after missing the first month of the regular season because of an oblique strain. He went just 3⅓ innings against the Rockies and gave up three earned runs on four hits and, most concerning, five walks.

Strider, who relied on the curveball a lot that day — mostly out of necessity — refused to use the altitude at Coors Field as an excuse for his poor performance.

“I just felt it was an inability to replicate mechanics, make an adjustment in-game,” Strider said. “I felt like I could have been more effective last week if I just would’ve been in the strike zone more. Felt confident that if I could do that today, that would certainly give us a better chance than I did last start.”

Of his 91 pitches Saturday against the Dodgers, 64.8% were strikes. He started 0-1 against 15 of the 21 hitters he faced and induced 15 whiffs.

Dodgers megastar Shohei Ohtani struck out on an inside fastball in the first inning and again in the sixth, in addition to grounding out to first in the third. Freddie Freeman flew out to center twice, sandwiched around a dribbler back to the mound that Strider took care of in the fourth.

“He was awesome. Pounded the zone, mixed it up and executed,” said Braves catcher Sean Murphy, who was behind the plate Saturday.

Murphy was also asked about Strider’s continual evolution: “I think he’s always growing and developing. I don’t think he ever rests on his laurels. He’s going to keep doing what he does.”

Strider’s next start will come this week at Truist Park against either the Cubs or Red Sox. The 27-year-old is hopeful, quite obviously, that start looks more like Los Angeles than Denver.

Although he insists it’s not a beauty pageant, it’s just about results.

“I’ve gotta disregard how I feel in a lot of ways. Putting up zeros is my job. So however I got to do it, however it looks, doesn’t really matter,” he said. “I think sometimes it’s easy to get too focused on where things are trending and how things are feeling.

“I think, ultimately, the game is moving so fast you got to be able to be external and find a way to just accomplish the task, throw strikes, compete, be aggressive and put up zeros, like I said. That’s the name of the game.”