{"id":672934,"date":"2026-04-11T02:42:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672934\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T02:42:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:42:57","slug":"olson-hits-long-go-ahead-homer-off-cecconi-in-6-run-6th-inning-as-braves-overwhelm-guardians-11-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672934\/","title":{"rendered":"Olson hits long go-ahead homer off Cecconi in 6-run 6th inning as Braves overwhelm Guardians 11-5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Matt Olson gave Atlanta the lead with a long <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/i\/status\/2042767923643646208\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow\">two-run homer<\/a> off Slade Cecconi in a six-run sixth inning and the Braves beat the Cleveland Guardians 11-5 on Friday night in a matchup of first-place teams.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardians led 2-1 before Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. hit a tying homer off Cecconi in the sixth. Following a single by Drake Baldwin, Olson pulled the 441-foot homer off the top of the Chop House restaurant roof in right field for a 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n<p>The blast was Olson&#8217;s fourth of the season. With Cleveland right-hander Matt Festa on the mound, Dominic Smith had a run-scoring single before Michael Harris II capped the six-run inning with another two-run homer over the Braves&#8217; bullpen in right-center.<\/p>\n<p>The Braves had seven hits, including three homers, in the big inning and finished with 15 hits.<\/p>\n<p>Cecconi (0-2) allowed five runs, four earned, on seven hits in 5 1\/3 innings. Tyler Kinley (2-0) pitched a perfect sixth for Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta right-hander Bryce Elder had not allowed an earned run this season before Kyle Manzardo hit a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/i\/status\/2042757231696056322\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow\">one-out homer<\/a> to center field in the fourth inning. The shot carried 454 feet and tied the game at 1.<\/p>\n<p>A passed ball by Guardians catcher Bo Naylor in the third set up a broken-bat single by Acu\u00f1a that drove in Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Smith drove in two runs with three hits.<\/p>\n<p>Cleveland scored three runs off right-hander Jos\u00e9 Suarez in the eighth.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardians, leading the AL Central, and the Braves, leading the NL East, are the only teams in the majors without a series loss.<\/p>\n<p>The Braves debuted their City Connect powder blue uniform that was inspired by the team&#8217;s look in the 1980s. Fans were given a Dale Murphy No. 3 jersey.<\/p>\n<p>Cleveland\u2019s Parker Messick (1-0, 0.82) is scheduled to face Atlanta\u2019s Mart\u00edn P\u00e9rez (0-0, 3.86) in a matchup of left-handers on Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Matt Olson gave Atlanta the lead with a long two-run homer off Slade Cecconi in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4166,5,867,192,4720,38728,18701,85424,157,1389,370,1452,541,661,4,9500,9501,9496,9497,82908,83365,921,9113,1106],"class_list":{"0":"post-672934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlantabraves","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-bo-naylor","13":"tag-braves","14":"tag-bryce-elder","15":"tag-dale-murphy","16":"tag-dominic-smith","17":"tag-guardians-braves-score","18":"tag-jose-suarez","19":"tag-kyle-manzardo","20":"tag-martin-perez","21":"tag-matt-festa","22":"tag-matt-olson","23":"tag-michael-harris-ii","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","26":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","27":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","28":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","29":"tag-product-40781-ap-georgia-sports-only","30":"tag-product-40806-ap-ohio-sports-only","31":"tag-ronald-acuna-jr","32":"tag-slade-cecconi","33":"tag-tyler-kinley"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}