Spencer Strider undergoes season-ending elbow surgery
Atlanta Braves right-hander Spencer Strider, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, underwent season-ending elbow surgery this week, the team announced early Saturday morning.
Strider, 25, was placed on the injured list last week with UCL sprain, which is typically a precursor to Tommy John Surgery. That’s the most common elbow surgery, but according to the team’s release above, this was a brace surgery, an alternative surgery.
He only made two starts on the season, last appearing on April 5 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was limited to just four innings after surrendering seven hits, three walks and five earned runs, including a three-run home run from Eugenio Suarez in the first inning. His only other start came on opening day against the Philadelphia Phillies, pitching five innings of two-run ball.
Strider underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019 when he was at Clemson, so this isn’t the first serious elbow surgery of his career.
The 6-foot starter was one of baseball’s most effective pitchers last season, striking out an MLB-mot 281 batters across 186.2 innings with a 3.86 ERA and an NL-best 2.85 FIP. His 36.8 strikeout rate topped MLB by over five percentage points (Blake Snell – 31.5 K%) while his whiff rate (38.6 percent) and chase rate (34.3 percent) graded in the 95th percentile or better, per Statcast.
The sport has a pitching crisis at hands, with myriad high-octane arms–including Eury Perez, Sandy Alcantara, Shane Bieber, Lucas Giolito, Framber Valdez, Shane McClanahan and Jacob deGrom–having all suffered serious elbow injuries within the last calendar year.
Strider, one of MLB’s best, was one of the latest to, unfortunately, bite the dust. There’s a lot of uncertainty with what to amount it to or how to correct it, but we can only hope the problem stagnates sooner rather than later.
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This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.
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