The Braves face the Los Angeles Deathstars in game 2 of their weekend 3-game series and this is the game with the biggest name value in the pitching matchup, as Spencer Strider faces off with Blake Snell.
Strider’s first outing of the season last week went pretty poorly in Colorado, but it was also in Colorado, a notoriously abnormal environment unfriendly to pitching. That said, his control was clearly not there, which isn’t something you would expect to be altitude-driven. The promising part of his outing was the 6 strikeouts and 14 whiffs he got through 3.1 innings and 87 pitches. Let’s hope that Spencer can pitch much longer into the game today, as his abbreviated last start somewhat wrecked the pitching staff for a few days. He’ll also need to find much better command against this terrifying Dodgers lineup.
The Dodgers will have their own star pitcher returning from injury, as Blake Snell will make his season debut for them. He replaced another star pitcher for LA, Tyler Glasnow, who hits the IL. Snell is a former Cy Young winner, but it’s never a certainty how a pitcher will fair in their return from an injury, particularly after missing a normal Spring Training. Snell is a tough lefty, which is not a great matchup for an Atlanta lineup, which has three star-level lefty bats, is missing Ronald Acuna, and has a struggling Austin Riley, though righty-Ozzie is always a plus. Snell’s curveball and changeup are nasty, though his fastball is more variable. He is also notoriously “effectively wild”, so the Braves can and should take some walks against him, which also contributes to his relatively short outings for a starter of his quality.
I’d give this matchup a solid advantage to LA on paper, given the platoon splits and how long it’s been since we saw a dominant Spencer Strider at the major league level, but with fairly large error bars, since both pitchers are just getting back from injury.
Game Time: Saturday, May 9th, 9:10 pm EDT
Location: UNIGLO Field at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA.
Radio/Audio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
