Spencer Strider had a fascinating first inning at Fenway Park on Tuesday. The Atlanta Braves right-hander threw 10 pitches in the frame, and it took him just five to retire the final three batters he faced. The first two batters were another story entirely. Jarren Duran walloped the second of Strider’s offerings over the right field fence, and Ceddanne Rafaela followed by depositing his fifth bullet over the Green Monster. The Red Sox led 2-0 before he had recorded an out.
What was that inning like for Strider? Wanting to find out, I approached him the next day to see if he’d be amenable to a pitch-by-pitch revisiting of what had happened. We’d had such a conversation back in his rookie season, albeit under far different circumstances: He’d fanned the side on 11 pitches in his lone inning of work.
Strider was happy to oblige, so I began by asking him if his game plan differed from 11 days prior, when he’d started against the Red Sox in Atlanta.
“There was some variation,” the righty replied. “I walked Duran to lead off the game in the previous outing, and I felt like some of that was a game-plan thing where we wanted to go with the heater; the walk was a lot of arm-side heaters. For my stuff, and kind of my mechanics, we wanted to target the glove side and get ahead [on Tuesday]. And I did, although I kind of pulled it down a little bit more than we were trying to do. Then we went back to it, as was the plan, and I kind of threw it in the same spot. The down-and-in heater to lefties isn’t a spot where you want to go, especially when they’re sitting heater. Maybe he pops it up or grounds out. Maybe he takes it again. Instead, he hit a homer. Big league hitters do that.”
The three pitches he threw to Rafaela were all elevated.
“We went fastball up for a swing-and-miss,” recalled Strider. “A lot of times you would probably go back to that. Kind of a don’t-leave-fish-to-find-fish mentality. If a guy swings and misses on a pitch, why would you try something else? But some of it is a scouting thing, a game-plan thing, in terms of how we want to attack him and get him out.
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“On 0-1, we went slider,” Strider continued. “It missed up, a really bad slider. Very rarely will I ever try to throw a slider up in the zone. Then, I think [catcher] Sandy [Leòn] felt the same way that I did at the moment: ‘OK, if we can throw a well-executed slider here, we’ve got him in a good spot.’ He’s shown that he’s looking for a heater — he’s on that timing — so I threw another slider. It was another hanger up in the zone. I don’t know if there are legitimate parameters to define a hanger, but it hung.”
In stunning fashion, Strider had been taken deep by the first two batters of the game. What was he thinking as Rafaela was rounding the bases?
“That I should probably stop throwing pitches exactly where we’ve identified we shouldn’t,” he replied. “That would be a good idea.”
The next pitch he threw was a curveball that Wilyer Abreu drove to deep right-center field, where it was caught on the warning track, 362 feet from home plate.
“Off the bat, I thought it was an out,” Strider said. “The crowd, after two homers, saw another ball in the air and got excited, but I was pretty confident that it was an out.”
Abreu hits breaking balls well, and he’s been one of Boston’s best hitters. Was it was the right pitch to throw at the time?
“There’s no wrong pitch, ever,” Strider opined. “It’s about execution. I mean, if you execute a pitch, then… hindsight is always 20-20.
“The idea of hot and cold… everybody is a big leaguer,” he continued. “Everybody can get you at any time. There are very few hitters who are going to hit well against executed pitches. Most guys are making their money on mistakes. The guys who are hitting executed pitches are having induction ceremonies.”
The right-hander proceeded to record his second consecutive first-pitch out, getting Willson Contreras on a routine popup to the infield. “I got it to that upper rail, where we wanted to go” he said of the 95.7-mph four-seamer. “It’s what I’d like a fastball to do on 0-0, get a one-pitch out.”
Strider didn’t get that result on his first pitch to Masataka Yoshida, but it wasn’t long thereafter that the eventful first inning was over.
“It was a fastball, strike looking on the outer half, a curveball, strike looking, and then a changeup below the zone for a swing-and-miss,” Strider said of the three-pitch strikeout. “It wasn’t a preplanned sequence. The previous pitch was a well-executed fastball with good shape, to Contreras, and we kind of built off what the last thing was. The idea of getting a quick out there, if we could, would be good, so we threw the heater. He takes it. At that point, I’m thinking — I think Sandy was as well — that something starting out as a ball is something he won’t swing at. That’s the idea of the curveball there. Of course, he takes it. Now he’s going to have to protect; there is no chance he’s going to take something starting as a strike. He’d just seen a ball move toward him, so you might as well throw something soft away.”
The conversation with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner once he returned to the dugout?
“There wasn’t a conversation,” explained Strider. “I think there was a consensus opinion that I did not execute some pitches, and guys hit homers off of them. That’s what happened.
“The reality is, if I give up five runs in the first inning, I still have a bullpen that’s going to be hard-pressed to cover a whole game,” Strider added. “We also have an offense that wants to get back in the game. You have to keep perspective of what your job is. It’s not always going to be to throw a no-hitter. Just do your job. Even if my outing has been tarnished in the first inning, I have to do my job.”
At game’s end, Strider had allowed just three hits and three runs over five innings. He was credited with the win, his third in as many decisions.