Today's Three Things: Matt Olson BLASTS Orioles in Extras to Win Opener
The Atlanta Braves looked to have squandered a prime scoring opportunity...until Matt Olson came to the plate
The Atlanta Braves took down the Baltimore Orioles 7-6 in ten innings in the series opener on Friday night in Camden Yards.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
I’m one again double-barreling this, going with the bottom of the 9th and the top of the 10th. Atlanta reached the ninth tied only because Drake Baldwin launched his 20th homer in the eighth, and the Braves chose to stick with Elieser Hernández for a third inning of work, which almost backfired. Baltimore logged two quick outs and then got to work with their attempt at walking off the Braves - Dylan Beavers drew a walk and Pete Alonso singled, pushing Beavers to 90 feet away from scoring.
The Braves chose to play the matchups, intentionally walking Gunnar Henderson to get to cleanup man Taylor Ward. The decision worked, with Hernández getting down 3-0 on Ward but rallying, getting a 3-2 fastball in on Ward’s hands and inducing a groundout to third to end the 9th inning and sending things to extras.
Atlanta opened the 10th inning with Brewer Hicklen, in for defense after Mike Yastrzemski pinch-hit for Eli White in the 9th, in as the “Manfred Man” at second base. Joey Bart singled to push Hicklen to third, with Jim Jarvis (in for defense after Dom Smith pinch-hit for Jorge Mateo in the 8th) having a chance to make his mark
And now that The Striper Bros were reunited in the lineup, good things started to happen. Jarvis’ hard-hit grounder to second baseman Jackson Holliday seemed to be too much for the pedigreed former #1 overall pick to handle, with Holliday flipping the ball over the shortstop’s head and allowing Hicklen to score from third.
4-3 lead for Atlanta, and the lineup turned over. Drake Baldwin and Ozzie Albies up to bat with runners on second and third and no outs? What a great situation to be in, right?
About that.
Baldwin and Ozzie put up some dreadful at-bats - Baldwin got up 3-0 and then swung at multiple pitches in the dirt, striking out. Albies followed it with a three-pitch strikeout of his own, both men chasing pitches out of the zone in an attempt to plunge the dagger in the Orioles.
A task too tall for the duo, but just right for Matt Olson.
Closer Andrew Kittredge threw Olson a 1-2 fastball on the inner third and up, and Olson absolutely obliterated it, launching the four-seamer 416 feet into the right-center stands to push Atlanta’s lead to 7-3.
Today’s Player of the Game
For the ninth time this season and to no one’s surprise, it’s Matthew Kent Olson with 68% of the vote.
Jake made a great point on the postcast - Baltimore’s fateful decision to pitch to Olson with first base open was reminiscent of Atlanta’s decision to pitch to Juan Soto on June 6th in the series finale versus the Mets. With runners on third (Tyrone Taylor) and first (Ronny Mauricio), Atlanta chose to let Raisel Iglesias pitch to Soto and he hit a three-run homer, staking New York to a 5-3 lead. Only Matt Olson’s two-run homer in the bottom of the 9th was able to force extras, where Atlanta scored one but allowed two in a 7-6 loss.
Today, Baltimore made the same mistake, pitching to Matt Olson with a base open, and he made them pay.
What You’ll Be Talking About
As fun as that win was, there are more warning signs with Atlanta’s pitching staff to discuss.
Grant Holmes finished five innings with three runs allowed on six hits and avoided getting taken deep, so it was…fine? He struck out five with only two walks, but it was still a frustrating outing. Holmes finished with just eight whiffs (five on the slider), but couldn’t seem to put away hitters when it mattered the most. He did, to his credit, allow an average EV of only 84.6 mph, so he wasn’t getting beat by hard contact, for the most part.
It’s also frustrating that we’re excited when a starter goes five innings, but that’s where this rotation is until the trade deadline can (hopefully) bring some reinforcements.
Holmes’ worst at-bat came against Christian Encarnacion-Strand in the 2nd inning, when he allowed a two-run double with two outs and two strikes. It was a frustrating sequence, with CES launching the fifth consecutive fastball he saw for a hard-hit double. With the slider’s success and CES having fouled off three consecutive heaters, why did Joey Bart continue to call for the same pitch?
And even more frustratingly, CES hasn’t played much this year, but his 2025 surface numbers said this was the right move - CES had a .294 average off of breaking balls and a .171 off of heaters. Why not just force-feed him fastballs until he got himself out?
Because the expected numbers, which help normalize small sample size flukiness by looking at similarly hit balls, said that CES against breaking balls and against fastballs was a .213 hitter either way. Why not try a slider?
After Danny Young and Tyler Kinley combined for the sixth, Elieser Hernandez pitched the 7th through 9th innings without allowing a run. He allowed just one hit while walking three (albeit one of those being intentional in the 9th) and striking out two. He finished with seven whiffs in his 21 swings, allowing eight batted balls (three hard-hit) with an average EV of 87.0 mph. It was an impressive performance for the journeyman, who was making his first MLB appearance since June 2024 and recorded a win for the first time since August of 2022.
Before we get out of here, let’s talk about Dylan Lee’s 10th inning. With Raisel Iglesias down, he came into the game with a four-run lead and quickly turned it into a save situation. After a leadoff single and a sacrifice fly, he hung a changeup off the plate away to Christian Encarnacion-Strand, who popped it for a two-run homer and brought Baltimore within one run of tying the game again.
Lee eventually rebounded, striking out Sam Huff on a semi-filthy slider to preserve the win, but with a bit more sweat than intended.
Lee’s ERA is up to 6.52 in the month of July after he’s allowed eight runs (seven earned) in just 9.2 innings. It feels like it’s just a blip in the matrix and I’m not worried about it, but I am watching it. If anyone was on the fence about acquiring another high-leverage reliever at the deadline, the runs allowed by both Iglesias and Lee in July (thankfully, in wins) and the continued injury absence of Robert Suarez should ensure that another backend arm is on the shopping list for August 3rd.
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’s looking for an early series win on Saturday evening, with Bryce Elder (6-6, 4.06 ERA) taking on Brandon Young (8-2, 3.25) at 7:05 PM ET.
"Grant Holmes finished five innings with three runs allowed on six hits and avoided getting taken deep, so it was…fine? "
Well, I guess that depends on your definition of "fine." It's 5 innings, which seems to be the new non-Sale measuring stick for our starting rotation, but it's an ERA of 5.40 which is not "fine", IMHO.
Great article - I agree with all of your points.
1. For CES to get nothing but fastballs seems like malpractice for Bart - but maybe he had been told by the staff to do just that.
2. Each day without another GOOD arm for the pen is agonizing.
3. Earlier in the season the second-line SP's after Sale seemed adequate. That has changed drastically - the second-line guys are clearly overmatched and the bull pen is trying to make up for it which will have its own price to pay. Maybe we're seeing that with Lee and Iglesias wobbling.
4. Without several truly miraculous defensive plays in this game, B'more would have won easily.
5. It was interesting to compare Bart's ABS challenges to Tromp's. Bart got one right but whiffed on several others including at least three non-challenges of balls that I and the TV guys thought were clearly strikes. Tromp was red hot. Effective ABS challenges are clearly an important part of a catcher's skill set.