ATLANTA — The mustache had humble beginnings. It began, as teenage-and-not-quite-men-yet boys are often crushed to discover, as glorified peach fuzz. Spencer Strider and his high school teammates in Knoxville, Tenn., would dye their hair blond and attempt to grow facial hair as a bonding experience before tournaments. And then, “It just kind of became a thing,” Strider said.
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The mustache is the thing. So is the pitcher who’s attached to it. Strider, who by his own admission had an unremarkable college career at Clemson and was considered by many to be overdrafted by the Braves as a fourth-rounder in 2020, has been one of the team’s remarkable surprises.
His fastball, driven by the torque of his windup and leg kick, touches 100 miles per hour. He has struck out 57 batters in 38 1/3 innings. He was so good in 11 relief appearances (2.22 ERA, 1.67 ERA, .478 OPS) that he was stretched out and tried as the team’s fifth starter. He has a 2.57 ERA in three starts, with No. 4 coming Wednesday at Washington.
Then there’s the stache. It stands out on Strider’s otherwise boyish face.
“It’s pretty top-notch,” Dansby Swanson said.
“It hides the youth,” Charlie Morton said. “And if you don’t know him, you can’t really tell that he’s on the humor wavelength until you see that smirk and the mustache moves a little bit.”
Joc Pederson and his pearls became an amusing subplot to the Braves’ World Series run in 2021. This season, the story might be a rookie pitcher and the hair on his upper lip. Strider’s mustache is more Catfish Hunter than Rollie Fingers. It’s not waxed or curled at the ends or so big and obnoxious that it requires a zoning permit. It’s not Hollywood-manicured like Clark Gable’s and doesn’t resemble twin foul poles like Salvador Dalí’s.
It’s just there, and it stands out, and it — and he — is building a following. Some young fans wore fake mustaches made of black tape before Strider’s last home start. There are a few Twitter sites, and hats and T-shirts, one with a silhouette of the pitcher and the words, “I’m Your Huckleberry,” presumably a reference to Val Kilmer’s line as the mustachioed Doc Holliday in the movie “Tombstone.”
“I’ve seen a couple of things that aren’t licensed,” Strider said, smiling.
He’s good with that. He’s more concerned about establishing himself as a pitcher than becoming a marketing presence, which is refreshing for a 23-year-old. He wasn’t even aware of the kids wearing fake mustaches but approves.
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“Hey, that’s great,” he said. “If I’m influencing style changes, that’s far more influential than I thought I’d ever be.”
People started calling him “The Mustache Man” when he was at Clemson. He wishes his pitching could have resonated as much. He was just OK as a freshman and was set to start the 2019 season as a sophomore when he suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament, leading to Tommy John surgery. He returned in 2020, but most of the season was canceled because of the pandemic.
The Braves drafted him in the fourth round anyway. General manager Alex Anthopoulos gives all credit to Dana Brown, the team’s vice president of scouting.
“We liked Spencer, but I remember at the time people felt that he was an overdraft in the fourth round,” Anthopoulos said. “Same thing with Michael Harris. He wasn’t famous, and Dana was strong on him. He really wanted him and believed in him. Spencer wasn’t a big name at the time, especially coming off an injury.”
Strider reworked everything after surgery. He changed his diet, becoming a vegan, for environmental and health reasons (it reduced the risk of inflammation in his elbow and lowered his high blood pressure, which runs in his family). Some teammates have taken to calling him “Soy Boy.” Or, Strider said, “they’ll say: ‘The grass is long in the outfield. Go trim it.’” (Read The Athletic’s David O’Brien’s recent story here.)
Strider also rebuilt his mechanics, focusing more on how his lower body worked. He now stands with his right (back) foot on the mound, pointed toward third base.
“People say I have duck feet,” he said. He said he creates so much “quick force from leg to leg in a short window” that his momentum causes him to pirouette after a pitch, particularly after a third strike.
“Some people think it’s intentional, but it’s just the way I follow through,” he said. “Sometimes I stop myself. But if it’s strike three, I’ll just keep going.”
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Before the pirouette, there was an emotional splat. The Braves drafted Strider, but they didn’t like what they saw in 2020. They told him he had a good fastball but was trying to do too much with other pitches and needed to simplify things and start over, from the ground up.
“I was in a weird place last spring,” he said. “They sort of had an intervention with me before I even faced a live batter. They said I was going to Low A and staying (in the minors) all year. Before that, I probably had some misplaced arrogant thoughts like, ‘I’m good enough to be in the big leagues.’ There was about 12 hours there where I was pretty down in the dumps. When getting to pro ball is your life and they tell you that you stink, it’s a kick in the ass. But you can’t let it keep you there.”
When told he didn’t come off as the arrogant type, Strider said, “It’s in there somewhere.”
Instead of trying to “skip steps” and throw five pitches, which caused him to lose command, Strider went back to trying to perfect his fastball in the top of the strike zone, develop a slider and go from there.
“I needed to hear that,” Strider said. “You get humbled. There’s two types of people in the world — it’s an old Clint Hurdle-ism: those who are humbled and those who are about to be. I was humbled and just bought into what they were telling me.”
Now The Mustache Man is making a name for himself. In “Tombstone,” Holliday’s line “I’m your Huckleberry” roughly translates to: “Name the job, and I can do it.” Strider is proving just that.
(Photo: Joe Camporeale / USA Today)