On April 29, 2021, Matt Olson hit himself in the face with a baseball in the batting cage at Tropicana Field. A freak bounce off the L-screen left him with the kind of shiner an athlete can usually only acquire by going 12 rounds with Marvin Hagler, but fortunately no lasting damage. By May 2, Olson was well enough to return to the lineup, and he hasn’t missed a game since.
Olson’s consecutive games streak now stands at 820; not only is this the longest active run in baseball, he recently passed Nellie Fox for the 11th-longest streak in MLB history. Assuming he avoids any further batting practice mishaps, Olson will end the season with the eighth-longest streak ever. Only seven players in MLB history — and 10 in all of North American top-level sports — have ever played in 1,000 straight games. Olson is due to become the 11th before the All-Star break next year.
This is undeniably an impressive athletic feat. For the past five seasons — and really, close to a decade, dating back to his early days in Oakland — Olson has been good enough to demand a starting position in a big league lineup. And for good teams, more often than not. He’s taken good enough care of his body to withstand the (considerable, even for a first baseman) physical toll of a 162-game major league season, and avoided injury through impact as well as wear-and-tear. (Olson has been hit by 30 pitches during his streak, and escaped with his hamate bone intact.)
As much as I admire Olson’s commitment and dedication, I have a bit of a crank take on iron man streaks: If you literally never miss a game, you’re probably hurting the team.
Olson has been suiting up six days a week every season for five years, and while he’s not taking the beating of a catcher or middle infielder, he’s still exerting himself enough to require rest. Not a lot, but skipping the odd day game after a night game might help him save his strength for big moments later in the year.
Since Olson joined the Braves in 2022, Atlanta has won 100 regular-season games twice. But the Braves’ postseason record is 2-8, and they’ve failed to win a single playoff round since their World Series title in 2021. Olson is hitting .250/.357/.417 with two homers in those 10 games, which is just fine in a vacuum but below his normal standards.
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In 2023, the Braves won 104 games with an unusually stable lineup: All nine starting position players played at least 100 games. Eight of them played at least 138 games, and in addition to the irreplaceable Olson, both Austin Riley and Ronald Acuña Jr. played 159 games apiece.
This is, from soup to nuts, one of the best regular-season teams I can remember. The Braves not only won a division that sent three teams to the playoffs, but they won it by 14 games. Olson was unbelievable, belting a career-high 54 home runs and hitting .283/.389/.604. This was one of those seasons that bears reaching back for the old-timey stats: Olson scored 127 runs and drove in 139. Had Acuña not scrambled away with the MVP trophy, Olson would’ve made a run at the award himself.
Olson followed that season up with back-to-back 29-homer campaigns. Acuña and Riley both battled injuries as Atlanta’s win total dropped by 15 from 2023 to 2024, and another 13 from 2024 to 2025.
The more tired the Braves looked, the more convinced I became that I had been right all along: Bossman gives you all that PTO for a reason, and you’re only hurting yourself if you don’t take it.
Six weeks into the 2026 season, I find myself… chastened. The Braves are 26-12, and Olson has, without exaggeration, been the best player in the National League. He’s hitting .301/.388/.671 with 13 home runs in 38 games, and if there are fluke indicators hiding in his stat line, they’re not especially troubling.
He is swinging the bat harder than in any previous season for which bat tracking data is available. And he’s making more contact than ever (both within and outside the zone) and striking out at his lowest rate since 2021.
As you might suspect from a hitter with a 50-homer season on his CV, Olson has always had terrific raw power. His long levers and looping, graceful swing have never evinced the raw strength or violence you’ll find among the true exit velo monsters — even graceful lefties like Shohei Ohtani. Olson hits the ball hard a lot, and he puts the ball in the air a lot, and so a lot of his fly balls carry out of the yard.
In 2023, Olson posted a HR/FB% of 27.8%, second behind Ohtani among qualified hitters. Last year, that number was down to 16.0%, which was 38th in the league. This year: 23.6%. Here’s one of the 55 fly balls Olson has hit this year.
Usually, when I plug a video into a post there’s some pedagogical value — I want you to see something specific to understand the point I’m making. Not so here. I just thought you might be interested to see a guy put a baseball on the roof of the Cumberland Mall.
I’m not entirely certain what’s changed. According to Baseball Savant, he’s standing with his feet a few inches closer together than last year, with a stance that’s a couple degrees more open. Comparing the home run from above with this one from last season, the difference is subtle at best.
Whatever the cause, Olson is making better swing decisions and meeting the ball more squarely than in previous seasons. Usually, when we say a hitter is “hot,” there’s an undercurrent of acknowledgment that he’s getting lucky. Hotness, often as not, has more to do with what happens after contact than before.
That’s not really the case here. Olson is hot because he’s seeing the ball well, and he’s getting appropriate results. This is a hitter for whom a down year involves 30-odd home runs and a wRC+ in the 120s; when he gets the “NBA Jam” fireball streak going, this is what it looks like.
It’s also worth noting that Olson and the Braves have also had pretty easy competition. Atlanta has played 11 different opponents so far this season; none of them currently (as of Thursday afternoon) has a winning record. The Braves played six games against the Phillies while they were in their dead parrot phase. Olson also has four homers in seven total games at Coors Field and Chase Field, the two highest-elevation ballparks in the league.
Still, Olson has the second-highest ISO in the National League. He’s killing the ball right now, to an extent that would be noteworthy even if the Braves had only played the Westish College Harpooners all year.
In conclusion: If Olson is hitting like this, the iron man streak will take care of itself. No sane manager would take this bat out of the lineup, even for one game.