{"id":696960,"date":"2026-05-12T12:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/696960\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T12:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:18:29","slug":"braves-matt-olson-evolving-matching-iconic-starts-by-mickey-mantle-babe-ruth-tris-speaker-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/696960\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves’ Matt Olson evolving, matching iconic starts by Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Braves’ Matt Olson evolving, matching iconic starts by Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Near the MLB season quarter pole, Atlanta Braves<\/a> first baseman Matt Olson<\/a> continues enjoying an iconic start.<\/p>\n

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Leading the Braves (28-13) to the league’s best overall record, Olson paced the highly-rated lineup in home runs (14), RBI (36), runs (36), doubles (15) and walks (22). The three-time All-Star became just the fourth player to accomplish the feat through 40 games<\/a> in the live-ball era.<\/p>\n

Evolving as an 11-year veteran, Olson matched the efforts of three Hall of Famers, Cleveland<\/a>‘s Tris Speaker (1920) and New York Yankees<\/a>‘ Babe Ruth (1923) and Mickey Mantle (1956).<\/p>\n

On Saturday, hours after legendary Braves manager Bobby Cox died<\/a>, Olson joined another exclusive club. When the game became official, Olson appeared in his 822nd consecutive MLB game, joining the top 10 of ironmen.<\/p>\n

Braves’ Matt Olson remains productive, consistent, on-call<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Olson, who hit his 300th career home earlier this season, moved past Gus Suhr and into 10th place on the list of most consecutive games played.<\/p>\n

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Here is a look at the top-10:<\/p>\n

1, Cal Ripken Jr., 2,632 games (1982-98)<\/p>\n

2, Lou Gerhig, 2130 (1925-39)<\/p>\n

3, Everett Scott, 1,307 (1916-25)<\/p>\n

4, Steve Garvey, 1,207 (1975-83)<\/p>\n

5, Miguel Tejada, 1,152 (2000-07)<\/p>\n

6, Billy Williams, 1,117 (1963-70)<\/p>\n

7, Joe Sewell, 1,103 (1922-30)<\/p>\n

8, Stan Musial, 895 (1952-57)<\/p>\n

9, Eddie Yost, 829 (1949-55)<\/p>\n

10, Matt Olson, 823 (2021-current)<\/p>\n

Then a member of the Oakland Athletics<\/a>, Olson has not missed a game since May 2, 2021. The Braves open a series<\/a> against the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs<\/a> at Truist Park on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

At 32, Olson continues to seek ways to improve his game. His recent tinker involved making more contact against pitches and not attempting to muscle the offerings out of the park. At 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, Olson burst onto the MLB scene with 24 homers in 59 games in 2017.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

After striking out a career-high 176 times last season, Olson focused on becoming more than a slugger. He wanted to become a contact hitter. Entering last weekend, the tweaks helped his contact rate rise to 79 percent, while his swinging-strike rate dipped to nine percent.<\/p>\n

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By altering his batting approach, Olson continues to prove that\u00a0his brand of baseball<\/a>\u00a0continues to evolve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Braves’ Matt Olson evolving, matching iconic starts by Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker originally appeared on The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,46,1647,5,24,135,541,6853,4,3226,62],"class_list":["post-696960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-babe-ruth","tag-baseball","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cleveland","tag-matt-olson","tag-mickey-mantle","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-athletics","tag-new-york-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116561569612385129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696960","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=696960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}