BRAVES' SPENCER STRIDER HAS CANDID RESPONSE TO JURICKSON PROFAR SUSPENSION
The Atlanta Braves were rocked by the news of outfielder Jurickson Profar’s second performance-enhancing drug suspension on Tuesday.
After he was hit with an 80-game suspension last year in his first season after signing with the Braves, Profar will miss all 162 games Atlanta plays this season, plus the playoffs. His absence once again leaves the Braves with a gaping hole at a spot in the lineup they thought they had covered.
Braves starting pitcher Spencer Strider admitted Wednesday that he was surprised by the news of Profar’s suspension. But he wasn’t about to let the 33-year-old’s absence become an excuse for the team if they underperformed for a second-straight season.
“You’ve got to go back to what you were doing,” Strider said, per Mark Bowman of MLB.com. “To me, it’s like an injury, it’s like anything else. We still have the rest of spring and our 2026 season. That’s where our focus is going to be. It’s where it was before we found out about that, and nothing’s changed in that regard.”
Bowman then asked Strider if he felt Profar’s actions were “selfish,” or if there were any other words the starter had to describe the sudden disappearance of a key piece of his team’s lineup.
“I don’t know that I have a word for what this is,” Strider responded, according to Bowman. “From my perspective, and from the perspective of the team, it’s adversity. It’s something that we can choose to acknowledge, put to bed, and move on from, or we can let it become an excuse. … It’s an emotional thing, but that can’t linger.”
Many of the Braves’ stars, Strider included, have missed significant time over the last couple of seasons due to injury. The team could ill-afford to lose anyone else this spring after the news that two of Strider’s rotation mates, Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep, would start the season on the injured list.
For all intents and purposes, Strider seemed to indicate that the Braves had their heads in the right place. We’ll soon see if that proves to be enough to get out of the spot of bother that Profar put them in.
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2026-03-04T18:13:49Z
