Today's Three Things: Braves Blow Out Washington in Offense Explosion

The Atlanta Braves tied a season high with sixteen hits, including four from Matt Olson, in their series-opening win

The Atlanta Braves took down the Washington Nationals 11-3 in Nationals Park on Monday night.

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

The Turning Point

The top of the fifth inning.

With the bottom of the order due up and the Braves clinging to a 2-1 lead, the question was if Atlanta’s offense could build the lead or if they’d be stuck trying to protect a narrow margin all game.

Atlanta’s bats put their hard hats on and went to work.

Back-to-back singles by Marcell Ozuna and Michael Harris to open the inning gave the Braves some baserunners, although things immediately looked dire after two infield groundouts had the inning on the verge of ending.

And then Matt Olson came to bat.

Atlanta’s big first baseman got a hanging 1-0 curveball and absolutely obliterated it, sending it 400 feet to right field and pushing the lead from “save situation” territory to “blowout” territory.

Today’s Player of the Game

Matthew Kent Olson, yet again.

As we mentioned earlier, Olson’s three-run home run was the big blow of Atlanta’s 5th inning. It was the third consecutive game with a homer for Olson, who ended this game with four hits, three for extra bases, and was a triple shy of the cycle.

We had this debate on the Postcast, but Olson’s clearly not only the most valuable hitter on the entire roster, he’s one of the best first basemen in the entire National League. He was tied for 17th in fWAR (and was tops among NL first basemen) entering tonight’s game with 4.1 and has likely separated from his group with his four hits, including two doubles and the homer.

I’m beginning to wonder if an examination of Matt Olson’s Hall of Fame chances would be premature…

What You’ll Be Talking About

Spencer Strider’s quality start.

Now rocking a few days of stubble instead of last start’s clean-shaven face, Strider went seven innings tonight with only one run allowed on six hits, walking two and striking out five. While his velocity was right in its 2025 normal, sitting around 95.5 on the four-seam fastball, his improved Induced Vertical Break of 17 inches meant that he was able to throw it in the zone without fear.

Running an 80% zone rate on the fastball meant that Strider could set up his secondaries, throwing his slider, curveball, and changeup all in the zone 1/4th of the time or less. He finished with 15 whiffs and a 32% CSW, allowing seven hard-hit balls but getting tagged for just one run, that coming off of a Daylen Lile solo homer in the 2nd inning.

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?

The two teams are playing a doubleheader on Tuesday in Washington, with the rotation now set for both games.

Game 1 (1:05 PM ET): José Suarez (1-0, 2.45) vs Jake Irvin (8-12, 5.70)
Game 2 (6:45 PM ET): Chris Sale (5-5, 2.52) vs MacKenzie Gore (5-14, 4.14)