Today's Three Things: Braves Secure Sweep Thanks to Late Runs

First baseman Matt Olson has hit a home run on five consecutive days, powering Atlanta's offense as he pushes closer to a 30 homer, 100 RBI season

The Atlanta Braves took down the Washington Nationals 9-4 in Nationals Park on Wednesday evening to secure a four-game sweep of the NL East foe.

Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The top of the 6th inning.

Atlanta’s offense set out to pick up young starter Hurston Waldrep, who was cruising before Washington tagged him for three runs in the bottom of the 5th inning.

After a leadoff flyout by Matt Olson, one of the few outs from the first baseman in this one, the Braves chased Nationals starter Brad Lord thanks to a Ronald Acuña Jr. single and a Drake Baldwin RBI double.

And reliever Clayton Beeter did not come prepared.

He walked both Ozzie Albies and Ha-Seong Kim, loading the bases, before consecutive two-out singles from Marcell Ozuna and Nacho Alvarez brought three runs in to score.

On the Alvarez single, Ozuna was thrown out trying to go first-to-third, prompting two unsuccessful challenges to the play: One from Atlanta, attempting to overturn the out call at third, and one from Washington, attempting to get the Kim run off the board through checking to see if he had crossed the plate when Ozuna was tagged out.

I think that’s the first time I’ve seen two unsuccessful challenges on the same play before, although I also have no idea how to search for this in either Statcast or Baseball Reference’s Stathead search system.

Today’s Player of the Game

Once again, it’s Matthew Kent Olson.

Because once again, Olson hit a home run in this one, launching a 7th-inning sinker to right-center at 109.2 mph off the bat and 422 feet.

It was Olson’s fifth home run of the last five days, pushing his September production to absurd territory. This calendar month, he’s hitting .383/.441/.851, an absurd 1.291 OPS that’s bound to earn him NL Player of the Month honors from Major League Baseball.

What’s more impressive is the impact this heater has had on his counting statistics. After entering the month with just 21 homers and 77 RBI, Olson’s now in range of his fourth 30/100 season. Olson is currently at 28 homers and 92 RBI, easily reachable on the power and, with a little help from leadoff man Jurickson Profar, reachable on the RBI front.

What You’ll Be Talking About

With all due respect to Hurston Waldrep, who I’ll talk more about on the podcast tomorrow, we need to talk about Michael Harris II.

He was the second out of that sixth inning and it may be the single worst at-bat by any professional baseball player in 2025.

Facing a struggling reliever who had thrown eight balls in eleven pitches, including walking the first batter he saw (Ozzie Albies) on four straight, Harris struck out on three straight swings.

Not only was only one of the pitches a strike, it was the only pitch in the at-bat that wasn’t thrown in the dirt.

Beeter opened Harris up with a slider in the dirt, which he swung at. He then threw a slider on the black, down and away, which Harris whiffed on.

He then spiked a slider short of the plate…and yet Harris still swung.

As my Postcast co-host Jake Mastroianni said on social media immediately after the at-bat, “MH2 can make all the mechanical adjustments he wants, but until he improves his pitch recognition and plate discipline, it’s not gonna matter all that much.”

I just…I have no words.¹

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 win.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s flying to Detroit tonight for a Thursday off day before a three-game set this weekend against the Tigers. While Detroit hasn’t yet announced their starters, Atlanta has set the rotation for the weekend:

Friday: Bryce Elder (7-10, 5.56)
Saturday: Joey Wentz (5-6, 5.56)
Sunday: Spencer Strider (6-13, 4.64)

1. Which is bad, because having spoken and written words about Atlanta Braves stuff is kinda my whole deal.