Matt

Olson

Olson was solely responsible for the Braves’ insurance runs in a tight win over the Mets with two solo homers off relievers. In one of the stranger offensive games in a while, they only had five total hits and four left the yard. Nevertheless, Olson is now up to 22 home runs, 54 RBI, and an .883 OPS in what’s been an All-Star caliber first half.

Olson has been in something of a rut, but this was a really nice effort. Two his hits today were 110-mph liners and the other was a 96-mph groundball single. Olson has now played in 82 games on the year. He hit .296/.377/.654 in the first 41 of those. He’s at .256/.310/.406 in the last 41.

The ball was flying out of Citi Field on a hot summer night with four total home runs. Olson cashed the only of which for his Braves and it was his 20th of the season. In doing so, he joined Kyle Schwarber, Yordan Alvarez, Byron Buxton and Munetaka Murakami as the only players to reach that mark yet in what’s been a massive bounce-back season power wise for Olson after hitting just 29 homers in each of the last two seasons.

Olson continues his impressive campaign, albeit in a walk-off loss to the White Sox. The 32-year-old blistered a two-run homer in the first inning, and then connected on a solo shot in the third. That’s now 19 homers on the season for Olson, and he’s plated 50 runs over 66 games. Olson is now on a 45-homer pace, and while he hasn’t reached those heights over his last two campaigns — 29 homers in the previous two seasons — he’s obviously more than capable of reaching that total with his prestigious pop.

Olson’s home run was his 17th of the season. He started the sixth inning by hitting a solo shot off Kevin Gausman. Olson’s home run was the deciding run of the game. He’s hitting .265 with 46 RBI and a .901 OPS.

There was social media speculation about a potential elbow issue for Olson during Friday’s series opener at Truist Park, which makes it notable that his streak of consecutive starts, the longest active in baseball, continues. He’s played 827 straight games since May 2, 2021.

Olson has been on fire at the dish. He kept it going on Tuesday with a base hit and a run scored in the fourth inning before taking Andrés Muñoz deep for a solo homer in the ninth to give the Braves the lead. It was his sixth home run in nine games. The 32-year-old slugger is up to 13 while hitting .308/.392/.695 with 35 runs scored and 33 RBI across 166 plate appearances.

After falling barely shy of 30-homer and 100-RBI seasons the last two years, it doesn’t look like Olson intends to leave anything to chance this season. He’s already racked up 12 homers and 32 RBI in 36 games and is on the short list of NL MVP candidates to date.

It was a garbage-time homer for Olson as it came with Atlanta already leading 8-1. Still counts. The 32-year-old has been outstanding to open the year, as this was already his 11th homer of the season, and he’s now slugging .639 on the campaign.

Olson is locked in right now. He came to the plate with his Braves down one against Kenley Jansen and smashed a walk-off, two-run shot. Earlier in this game, he also had batted balls hit at 111.5 mph and 108.9 mph. Again, he is on fire with a .306 batting average, 1.087 OPS, and nine home runs through nearly one month of play.