Matt Olson has accomplished a lot already in his Atlanta Braves career. On Wednesday night, he finally got to mark off one more item off his list: a walk-off win for his hometown team.
Olson crushed a home run in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Braves to a 4-3 win over the Detroit Tigers. It’s his fourth career walk-off home run, but his first in a Braves uniform.
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Atlanta (22-9) also secured another series win and will go for the sweep on Thursday. The Braves haven’t lost a series yet this season.
“We’re definitely having fun with it. Winning cures all. We’ll see how long we’re going to ride this streak out,” Olson told BravesVision after his walk-off.
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Ozzie Albies got the Braves off to a 2-0 lead with a home run off reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. He held the Braves scoreless for the rest of his outing after that.
Braves pitcher JR Ritchie, who was making his second career start and first appearance at Truist Park, started off shaky. The 22-year-old gave up three runs, two of which were earned, but eventually settled.
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Ritchie finished the night with four strikeouts before turning it over to the bullpen.
“I thought JR really battled. He had a lot of deep counts. He had to stay in the fight there and he did,” manager Walt Weiss said in his postgame news conference.
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Dylan Lee didn’t give up a run and Reynaldo Lopez, who was moved back to a relief spot, pitched two perfect innings to keep it a one-score game.
“We’ve been chasing those games with our bullpen trying to keep it there. I fee like our offense is in a really good place. I feel like if we keep it to one, we have a really good chance of winning those games late.”
The Braves will finish the series with the Tigers on Thursday afternoon. The team will head out west for a nine-game road trip in Colorado, Seattle and Los Angeles.
