Photo: Bama in ATL via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped. This adapted image is also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Spencer Strider has finished his first All-Star season on top of the major leagues. The Atlanta Braves right-hander won his 20th game in a 5-3 win over the Washington Nationals on Saturday and ends the regular season 20-5 with 281 strikeouts and a 3.86 ERA in 32 starts, leading MLB in both wins and strikeouts, according to his season record.
Those 281 strikeouts, confirmed by StatsCrew's season table, are a modern-era Braves record, beating the 276 John Smoltz struck out in 1996. He was the fastest pitcher in MLB history to reach 100 strikeouts in a season, needing just 61 innings, and on August 1 he beat his own record for the quickest to 200. In July he made the National League All-Star team for the first time.
Not bad for a pitcher who missed his entire 2019 college season after Tommy John elbow surgery, and who only joined the Braves rotation in May last year. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2022 and signed a six-year, $75 million extension.
Strider eats a plant-based diet, which he took up because it made him feel healthier, and he is upfront about the exception. Fox Sports found him at spring training with a plate of tofu, rice and vegetables and reported that he sticks to plants "except for salmon, sometimes". He walked the reporter through his lunch:
Got some beans here, some lentils. I think the tofu they make specially for me.
With a fastball touching 99 mph and a trademark mustache, he has become one of the most recognizable faces in Atlanta, and the Braves head into the playoffs with him at the front of their rotation.
We first wrote about Strider when he struck out 16 for a Braves nine-inning record last year. This summer DeAndre Jordan won his first NBA title with Denver, and last month Anna Henderson took European time trial silver.
Powered by plants (and the odd bit of salmon).