Today's Three Things: Braves Bash Mets Behind Olson's Two Homers
Atlanta only had five hits, but four of them were homers in their series-opening win over New York
The Atlanta Braves took down the New York Mets 5-3 in their series opener in Truist Park on Friday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
It’s early, but I’m going to go with the top of the fourth inning.
Much has been written about Grant Holmes’ struggles with the second time through the order, and early in this one, it looked to be coming true again - after allowing the Mets only one hit and one walk the first time through the order, Holmes saw A.J. Ewing reach via error and then Juan Soto homered him in back in the third.
In the fourth, Holmes got two quick outs (something he did a lot tonight) before running into trouble. A Francisco Alvarez single off a 1-2 curveball and a Brett Baty double off a 0-1 heater, both pitches being on the edges of the zone, had New York with a burgeoning two-out rally.
But Holmes was undaunted. He battled #9 hitter Luis Torrens in a seven-pitch at-bat, spamming sliders down before changing Torrens’ eye level with a fastball up and then coming back to the low slider, getting the whiff.
Holmes finished with five innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on five hits and a walk, striking out two. His ERA is now 3.83.
Today’s Player of the Game
With 91% of the vote on the postcast, it’s Matt Olson.
Olson’s June was…odd. He set a season-high mark in batting average (.315) and slugged .494, but had only four homers in the month after hitting nine in March/April (.616 slug) and seven in May (.459 slug).
He’s halfway to that June homer total already, hitting two bombs tonight.
The first was in the 5th inning, his third plate appearance of the game, and came off a poorly-located cutter from former teammate A.J. Minter.
The second was also on a cutter, this one better located by Kodai Senga but still over the plate.
Atlanta’s offense was not one of the worst in June; they were the worst in several categories: runs scored, OPS, and yes, home runs. And fair or not, a lot of that blame is going to go on the 6-4 first baseman who has a 54-homer season under his belt.
But tonight’s 840 feet of longballs puts him into a tie with Philly’s Bryce Harper for homers among primary first basemen, with 20 each. And it’s important that Olson outpaces Harper down the stretch, because unlike Harper (who is supported by DH Kyle Schwarber), Olson is Atlanta’s primary source of power right now with Ronald Acuña Jr. still out until sometime after the All-Star Break.
This Player of the Game award gives Olson seven on the season, tying him with Michael Harris II for third on the team. Chris Sale still has the team lead with 10, while Bryce Elder has nine.
What You’ll Be Talking About
With all due respect to the 2026 debut of Danny Young out of the bullpen and the clutch performances of both Dylan Dodd and Didier Fuentes, let’s talk about the offense.
Yes, they hit four home runs - it’s the most home runs they’ve had in a game since May 30th - but other than that, it wasn’t actually a great night for the offense.
Atlanta struggled with the stuff of Christian Scott to the tune of seven strikeouts and 13 whiffs, although Austin Riley only whiffed once on the sweeper, a concern we had entering the game. Kodai Senga, who was demoted to long relief after putting up a 9.09 ERA in his first 32.2 innings this season, got six whiffs and struck out four of the ten Braves he faced, although he did give up a solo shot to Matt Olson.
The Braves finished with only five hits in the contest, leading to a bit of history - per Baseball Reference, this is the first time the franchise has ever had four homers while putting up five or fewer total hits in a game.
Atlanta walked four times, which is not nothing - Mauricio Dubón got on first base via walk before Harris hit his two-run homer in the 2nd inning - but also finished just 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position and stranded four on base.
It was good results, but achieved through a non-sustainable process that isn’t guaranteed to be repeated were you to replay the game. If Atlanta wants to maintain their lead over Philly, they need to be more consistent on offense than what we saw tonight.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.
What’s Next for the Braves?
Atlanta has a national broadcast on Fox for an interesting duel of lefties: Chris Sale (8-6, 2.10) takes on Sean Manaea (1-3, 4.71) at 8:08 PM ET. Manaea’s career turned around after signing with New York for the 2024 season and being given an interesting bit of advice from then-pitching coach Jeremy Hefner: Drop your arm angle and channel Chris Sale by moving to the left-hand side of the rubber and throwing more four-seamers and sweepers instead of his existing sinker/changeup arsenal.