4 Braves clubhouse reactions to Spencer Strider making history
By Kevin Henry
On Thursday night at Truist Park, Spencer Strider became the king of the single-game strikeouts for the Atlanta Braves.
With 16 strikeouts over eight innings in the series finale against the Colorado Rockies, 23-year-old Spencer Strider etched his name in the Atlanta Braves record book for the most strikeouts in one outing, eclipsing the 15 whiffs put together by John Smoltz on two different occasions during his Hall-of-Fame career in Atlanta.
In his 17th career start for Atlanta, Strider also allowed just two hits as the Braves recorded a 3-0 win over Colorado.
We were in Atlanta for the historic game and went inside the Braves clubhouse to get the reactions from Strider, his catcher Travis d’Arnaud, his fellow rookie, outfielder Michael Harris II, and his manager, Brian Snitker, on the history-making outing.
Here are four different reactions to Spencer Strider setting a new Atlanta Braves strikeout record
Let’s start with d’Arnaud, the veteran catcher who was credited time and time again by Strider after the game for working with him on the game plan that proved so successful against Colorado.
“What I saw was his fastball command was excellent today, and it was on both sides [of the plate] and in and out and up and down,” d’Arnaud said. “And when you can do that at 100 [mph, as Strider hit that on three pitches on Thursday], it makes everything so much better.”
d’Arnaud said that Strider landing his fastball early in the count (20 of 27 first pitches went for strikes) was a key.
“When you get that first strike, hitters have a harder chance to win the at-bat,” d’Arnaud said. “He also had his slider going as well and getting ahead early in the count opened up a lot of different options and sequences for us to use.”