BREAKING: Braves bent over backward to ruin Spencer Strider’s return to the mound

Drake Baldwin was the only Atlanta Braves player who remotely cared to help out Spencer Strider.

Spencer Strider, Atlanta Braves

The 2025 Atlanta Braves are a colossal waste of everyone’s time. Wednesday was supposed to be all about Spencer Strider making his return to the mound against the Toronto Blue Jays after more than a year rehabbing from an elbow injury.

Instead, the Braves offense was as worthless as Monopoly money. They could not do much at the plate when Spencer Schwellenbach was on the mound on Tuesday night, and did even less with Strider on the mound in a 3-1 loss.

The Braves have the day off on Thursday, but I would rather see the Double-A Columbus Clingstones play at Truist Park vs. the Minnesota Twins this weekend instead.

The worst part in all this is that Strider pitched well in his first start back. He was not perfect, but he was good enough to keep Atlanta competitive, giving up just one run on four hits over his first five innings of work.

Despite having his pitch count north of 90 — and, again, not having pitched in a meaningful game in 12 months — Brian Snitker was a buffoon in a Canadian dome and sent the righty back out for the sixth, only for him to give up a meatball of a home run to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The big boy is back.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s first home run of 2025: pic.twitter.com/fequ2WJ23V

— Keegan Matheson (@KeeganMatheson) April 16, 2025

I cannot wait for football season to get here so I do not have to watch this festering crap. I will continue to write about the Braves, only because my job requires I provide some insight on them.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB season.

Atlanta Braves could care less that Spencer Strider was on the mound

I know I am being hyperbolic about this, but something has to give with this team. Atlanta’s lineup struck out a ridiculous 19 times on the day, including 11 from Michael Harris II, Austin Riley and Matt Olson at the top of the order.

I have been writing at FanSided for 10 years as of today, and history has a sick way of repeating itself. I feel like I am watching yet another Fredi Gonzalez catastrophe every day in real time.

So where do we go from here? We turn all of the lights down now, as our smiles fade in the summer. You can place your hand in mine, and you can leave when you wanna, as fate fell short this time. If you want to blink 182 times to see if this team can do anything worth a damn, be my guest.

I got no regret right now in my life, other than I decided to watch this game while I worked on Wednesday afternoon.

If Harris’ Ford Bronco is shooting the Hooch this weekend, my alibi will be ironclad, so it wasn’t me …

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