Matt Olson had not homered since June 12, a 16-game stretch that quietly became the longest drought of his season. He ended it twice in one night. Olson hit a pair of solo home runs Friday at Truist Park, and the Atlanta Braves beat the New York Mets 5-3 to open a four-game series.
Atlanta managed just five hits, and four of them left the yard. Michael Harris II hit a two-run shot, Ozzie Albies added a solo homer, and Olson’s two blasts gave him a team-high 22 on the season alongside a .273 average and an .883 OPS. It was his second multi-homer game of the year. That is not a sustainable way to score five runs every night, but when the swing is right, Olson can carry an offense for a week at a time, and the swing looked very right.
The win mattered beyond the box score. Atlanta arrived at Friday having lost 15 of its previous 20 games, a slide that shaved its NL East cushion down to three games over second-place Philadelphia. The record still reads 51-35, and the division lead is still Atlanta’s to lose — but the last three weeks were an unwelcome reminder that leads erode quickly when the lineup goes quiet.
Grant Holmes gave the Braves exactly what a slumping team needs: five innings, five hits, two runs (one earned), one walk. He was efficient rather than dominant, and the bullpen closed it out from there, with Raisel Iglesias working around three ninth-inning hits for the save.
Credit where it is due: Juan Soto homered for New York, and rookie Christian Scott struck out seven Braves in four innings. But Scott also walked four, and Atlanta made him pay for the free passes — the kind of exacting arithmetic good teams apply to young pitchers.
The teams continue the series Saturday, with three more chances for Atlanta to turn one good night into an actual correction.
