Today's Three Things: Matt Olson Blasts Braves to Sweep-Averting Win
The Atlanta Braves might have a NL MVP finalist on their hands
The Atlanta Braves took down the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3 in Truist Park on Sunday afternoon to avoid being swept. They’re now just 12-25 against the NL West, with seven games remaining; the Dodgers, Rockies, and Giants all come to Truist Park to close out the month.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The bottom of the seventh inning.
Arizona had just tied the game at two runs each, getting a leadoff homer off of Didier Fuentes, and Atlanta had the bottom of the order due up.
Austin Riley led off the inning with a 110 mph double to left, his third hard-hit ball of the day, and it came in an encouraging at-bat: He laid off two sliders down and away, working the count to 2-2, and got a hanging slider in the zone that he fired off an “A” swing on. Jim Jarvis immediately bunted Riley over to third, but after closer Brandyn Garcia came into the game and walked Drake Baldwin, he got Ronald Acuña Jr. to strike out. Arizona was close to slamming the door shut on yet another Braves run-scoring opportunity.
Matt Olson kicked that door wide open.
Olson took two sweepers and a sinker for balls, forcing Garcia to come back into the zone to avoid loading the bases. It wasn’t a bad sinker, sitting about knee high in the zone for Olson, but he clearly expected both the pitch and the location and he did not miss it.
That blast was 109.5 mph off the bat and 437 feet for Olson, ultimately standing as the winning run for the Braves.
Fun fact, Didier Fuentes got charged with both a blown save (his 5th) and a win (also his 5th), as he gave up the lead in the top half of the inning but was still the pitcher of record when Atlanta took it back.
Today’s Player of the Game
In a surprise to absolutely nobody, it’s Matthew Kent Olson.
Olson’s homer today was his 36th, leaving him one off of Philly’s Kyle Schwarber for the league lead. He’s sitting at 66 extra-base hits, which leads baseball, with his 88 runs scored being 2nd to Washington’s James Wood (100) and both his .551 slug and 265 total bases leading the National League.
Braves Today sponsor FanDuel has NL Most Valuable Player odds on the board for only two players: Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani (-140) and Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (+115). But it’s hard to make a case for anyone else to be third over Matt Olson at the moment, not when you consider the offensive production, the expected second consecutive Gold Glove, and the Ironman streak of not having missed a game since early in the 2021 season.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Raisel Iglesias having another shaky outing.
Called on for a routine save with a three-run lead, Iglesias instead put Braves fans on a 21-pitch roller coaster that we weren’t exactly mentally prepared for.
Facing the middle of the Diamondbacks’ order, Iglesias walked leadoff man Ketel Marte on six pitches and gave up a 105 mph single to Max Kepler before recording his first out.
And then things got weird.
After getting utilityman Tim Tawa to fly out for the 2nd out of the inning, the third base umpire decided only then to call Iglesias for a balk. There are, somehow, no replays floating around the internet for me to show you - the MLB research tool doesn’t capture clips of ‘non-plays’ - but the Arizona dugout began yelling as Iglesias delivered the pitch. After talking to someone on the Diamondbacks beat, it appears that the dugout thought that Iglesias slightly separating his hands after coming set rose to the level of a balk, and after the flyout was over, the third-base umpire decided to invalidate the out by agreeing with them and calling the balk.
With the runners now on second and third and Tawa having a new lease on life, he grounded out, scoring Marte from third. Iglesias, still visibly off his game after the balk call, managed to get a flyout of catcher James McCann to preserve the lead.
It’s yet another shaky outing for the usually-reliable Iglesias, who has allowed six runs on nine hits and five walks in his last 6.2 innings. Four of those seven outings have seen the opponent score.
I’m not panicking yet, but it’s definitely concerning. Every closer has shaky moments, and Iglesias is usually good for two weeks a year, so hopefully this is about to be past us, and he can resume his usual 9th-inning dominance through the end of October.
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?
The Braves are off to the airport for a three-team, four-city road trip, beginning in Minnesota against the Twins on Monday. Here are the pitching matchups for Target Field:
Mon: Martín Pérez vs Bailey Ober
Tue: Tyler Mahle vs Zebby Matthews
Wed: Chris Sale vs Taj Bradley