Today's Three Things: Matt Olson BLASTS Atlanta to a Pitcher's Duel Win
One of Atlanta's stars stepped up to make sure they came out on top of a great contest.
The Atlanta Braves took down the Seattle Mariners 3-2 in T-Mobile Park on Tuesday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Atlanta’s top of the 9th.
With the game tied at two, both teams were using their high-leverage arms to keep the other team off the board. (More on Atlanta’s pen in a minute). Seattle went to closer Andrés Muñoz, pitching on his second straight day, to keep the game tied and put the Mariners into a position to walk it off.
He, uh, didn’t do that.
Matt Olson took two pitches down, a sinker and a slider, to get ahead in the count. Muñoz countered by coming into the zone with a fastball, getting a thigh-high called strike on the outer third.
And then Muñoz made his mistake.
With catcher Mitch Garver calling for a slider on the inner third and elevated, Muñoz left it down and on the outer third…right into Olson’s bat path.
Despite it not being a pull-side fly ball, Olson’s natural strength was more than enough - 110.5 mph off the bat and into the left-center seats to give Atlanta the lead.
Special recognition here goes to Mauricio Dubón. Olson wouldn’t have been in the position to be the hero if not for Dubón’s two-RBI double in the top of the 4th.
It was yet another opposite-field shot from Dubón, who is showing a propensity for clutch hits. So far this season, the utilityman is hitting .306 with runners in scoring position.
Today’s Player of the Game
It’s Bryce Elder, getting 48% of the vote on the postcast.
“Big Texas” set a season-high with 9 strikeouts, fueled by an improvement in his changeup. It’s something I first noticed while doing my game prep - Elder’s cut a lot of spin from the pitch, enhancing its tunnel with the four-seam fastball and getting more late drop.
Elder allowed just two runs on two hits, both scoring on a 3rd inning homer from JP Crawford. Elder’s slider had its usual time in the limelight, leading his arsenal with six whiffs on eleven swings, but the changeup was practically unhittable. Elder induced just six swings on the pitch, but five were whiffs and the other a foul ball.
It’s the continuation of a breakout season for the right-hander, with his ERA now down to 2.02 and Elder’s name even being floated in the early “Cy Young dark horse” articles that are beginning to come out.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Outside of the offense and Bryce Elder, Atlanta’s bullpen deserves some acclaim.
With Raisel Iglesias reinstated this morning, the Braves were able to roll back out the fully armed and operational battle station that is their high-leverage relief.
Dylan Lee took the 7th, with Robert Suarez in the 8th and Raisel Iglesias in the 9th. The trio combined for seven strikeouts, no walks, and only one hit, a ‘duck fart’ single at 76 mph off of Iglesias. They were almost untouchable - 12 whiffs on 24 swings, with just three balls being put into play (and none of them quality contact).
Without diving into each team’s leverage situation, it feels like Atlanta could have one of, if not the best, back-ends of the bullpen in all of MLB.
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?
Slight change here for Atlanta - they’re pulling Grant Holmes back and going with Martín Pérez (2-1, 2.22 ERA) to start tomorrow afternoon’s finale. Bryan Woo (1-2, 4.61) gets the ball for Seattle at 4:10 PM ET.