A 3-0 swing that Weiss is still talking about
Most hitters take the pitch there. Matt Olson did not. Up 3-0 in the count on Sunday, he drove one to the deepest part of the ballpark, and the Braves turned a 2-2 game into a 5-3 win over Arizona with a three-run seventh.
Walt Weiss did not say much afterward. “He’s just a special player who does special things,” the Atlanta manager offered. “Not only did he stay within himself, but he drove the ball to the big part of the park.”
Olson is hitting .264 with 36 homers and 77 RBIs. The first baseman is carrying an offense that has six weeks to sort out what its season means.
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Perez has been stuck on 99 for a while
Atlanta hands the ball to Martin Perez on Monday night in Minneapolis, opening a three-game set. The left-hander sits at 8-6 with a 2.96 ERA this year and one win short of 100 for his career. Lifetime, he is 99-99 with a 4.32 ERA over 348 appearances. Perfectly .500, which is its own kind of career.
The opponent is not the one he wanted. Perez is 1-4 with a 4.88 ERA in 14 games against Minnesota, nine of them starts.
Austin Riley has given the lineup a second bat to worry about. He opened the year cold. He is hitting .319 in August. Weiss brought it up unprompted, then reminded the room that Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II both crawled out of the same hole last summer.
Minnesota arrives in a bad mood
The Twins were just swept by Philadelphia, and Derek Shelton was not interested in softening it. “We got beat in the last inning twice in Seattle. Same thing in Milwaukee. We didn’t play well in that series,” he said. He also flagged the 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position, which explains most of it.
Bailey Ober takes his 19th start, 7-4 with a 4.64 ERA and no win since July 17 against the Cubs. His one career outing against Atlanta went about as badly as an outing can go: nine runs on seven hits in two innings. A 40.50 ERA in the series history, and a number he will be happy to bury.
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