Well, the sad writing was brightly stenciled onto the proverbial wall last night, and there goes Spencer Strider to the Injured List, again:
Strider departs, perhaps temporarily, with a 127 ERA-, 131 FIP-, and 103 xFIP-. Despite the hope that he’d build on an extended
but uneven stretch in the rotation after returning from a series of injury woes last year, his 2026 was similarly uneven, with him seemingly alternating between “really good” and “ah, nuts” on a start-to-start basis. In aggregate, the bad was worse than the good, and while a Strider without HR/FB issues would be a useful rotation piece (his aggregate 102 xFIP- last year, and 103 this year), it’s not clear whether he can avoid HR/FB issues given what’s transpired when he’s pitched. In any case, there’s now a bigger hurdle ahead of him, as his velocity precipitously declined amid mechanics-related command issues over the course of yesterday’s start, and now we’re in wait-and-see mode.
Anthony Molina has been a prime yo-yo candidate for the Braves this year. This will be his third time pulled up to the big league club, though he’s only made one appearance for the Braves. His performance as a swingman for Gwinnett has been pretty blah — an FIP and xFIP in the mid-4.00s — but he’s not really here to get outs while preventing runs, as the focus on any appearance he makes will be the former with little attention paid to the latter.
Stay tuned for… more bad news, but maybe the Braves will snap their skid later today in New York.
