Matt Olson took his own advice and the Braves are reaping the rewards

Just when I finally put the Atlanta Braves in timeout, they responded how I have wanted them to all year long. On getaway day vs. the Baltimore Orioles, the Braves bats finally woke up from the six-week sabbatical, or whatever nonsensical late spring break they decided to go on. Atlanta shockingly won three games in a row before dropping the series finale at home to the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.

This comes a little more than a week since my FanSided.com colleague Cody Williams said Matt Olson calling out the Atlanta offense was the equivalent of calling the kettle black. For a guy who set franchise records last year for home runs and runs batted in to be hitting this poorly, I had no problem with Williams going there. Thankfully, Olson took a bit of his own advice and has played well of late.

On the year, Olson is hitting .261 with 11 home runs and 38 runs batted in. Not really anything All-Star level, but certainly better than where they were around Memorial Day weekend. If you look at his offensive splits for June 2024, you can really see Olson's game take a turn for the better. He is slashing .358/.424/.642 since June 1 with three home runs, eight runs batted in and 19 base knocks.

But over the last seven days, Olson is slashing .478/.538/.931 with two home runs and 11 base hits.

As you can see, you can learn by talking, or at least listening to what you have to say to someone else.

Matt Olson has been on fire since calling out the Atlanta Braves offense

Baseball is a skill game, but one built on athleticism. It is a game that favors the approach of a marathon, but why are we always sprinting in September and October? Most importantly, it is a game built around all sorts of streaks from good, to bad, to downright ugly. Olson is a notoriously streaky hitter, but he has become a more consistent hitter since being traded over from Oakland in 2022.

With so many star players having suffered major injuries on this team, Olson may be left with no choice in the matter. If Atlanta wants to still be a playoff-caliber team, one that could upset some people in the postseason, Olson is going to have to emerge as this team's new leader. Leadership has been at the crux of many problems with this team ever since they last won the World Series in 2021.

Overall, it is nice to be able to watch the Braves when and where I can, knowing that Olson is in fact no longer a walking strikeout at the plate. More adjustments will have to be made to this lineup, but once the puzzle pieces fit, this team could be much harder to stop. It is never going to be firing on all cylinders this season, but we have not seen Atlanta play its best brand of baseball up to this point yet.

How the Braves play to start this week vs. the Detroit Tigers will tell us a lot about this team, alright.