MILWAUKEE – During a rough 2020 season with Oakland, Matt Olson let his frustration show. This was a weird year, with the COVID protocols and no fans in the stands. Olson, one of the game’s best first basemen, hit .195. He was not happy about his performance, and it became evident.
That season became a lesson that facilitated a mindset shift: It is not always best to show frustration so outwardly.
“I felt like I wasn’t being a good teammate because of my own individual stuff,” Olson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “When it goes past just hurting yourself, it’s kind of like you’ve gotta take a look in the mirror.”
Marcus Semien, the veteran leader in Oakland at the time, helped with this. One time, after Olson had a rough game and let his anger show, Semien pulled him aside and gave him a little talk. The tone of it: “Come on, bro.”
“The ‘You’re-better-than-this’ kind of thing,” Olson said about it. “It stuck with me.”
This is why you rarely see Olson express anger or frustration in plain sight. He’s slumped for large parts of this season, but the bats, bat racks and water coolers have been safe. You might see Olson sling his helmet and bat to the side after striking out, and you might see the irritation on his face.
But you will not see him make a scene.
He makes a conscious effort to keep a level head.
“Everybody cares a lot and wants to compete and wants to do well,” Olson said. “I’ve been a guy in the past, when I was younger, that didn’t hide it that well, and it just doesn’t really benefit much. If you need to have a little moment in the tunnel or something to get some frustration out, I think it’s better than doing it outwardly. I think that’s kind of the better way to go about it. Obviously, there’s times when you can’t hold back.”
Credit: Rick Scuteri
Credit: Rick Scuteri
This is how Kevin Seitzer, the Braves’ hitting coach, sees it:
“He’s really keeping it together really good. I mean, it’s killing him inside. But he’s the ultimate pro. He comes in, he’s got a great attitude, feels like he’s gonna go off at any second. I feel like he’s gonna go off. Every time he steps in the box, I feel like we could see a homer.”
Seitzer said that on Friday. On Saturday, Olson homered for the first time since July 7. Then he launched another blast on Sunday – a three-run rocket that flew to the upper deck in right field. He’s beginning to heat up, which is great news for Atlanta as it heads into the final two months of the regular season.
Entering Monday, Olson was batting .227 with a .706 OPS. Those would be his worst numbers over a full season – not including the condensed 2020 season. He has plenty of reason to be frustrated, but he’s continued pushing forward and trying to find the adjustments.
What he identified: His bat path has been off. He feels like he’s been chopping down on the ball.
“Just the path is not in a spot where I have a bigger window to hit pitches, so (I’m) trying to get to a place where I can get in (the) zone early and stay in the zone to be on more pitches, more speeds, more locations as opposed to more one pitch, one spot,” Olson said. “A lot of foul balls – which I’ve been having – is normally a sign of that.”
Everyone knows what Olson, a Parkview High alum, can do: A season ago, he mashed 54 home runs, which set a Braves single-season record and led all of MLB. Coming into Monday, he’d posted an .851 OPS since the Braves traded for him. He’s clearly one of baseball’s top hitters, even if he’s struggled this season.
On Friday, Seitzer said Olson’s slump has “been rough on him, and tough on all of us.” He added that Olson had been making the adjustment in the batting cage, but it wasn’t translating into games. Thus, he was searching for repeatability. “That’s just been the frustrating part to him,” Seitzer said.
It seems Olson might’ve figured it out. From the series finale against the Reds through the finale against the Mets, Olson went 7-for-20 with the two homers and four RBI. He had a pair of two-hit games in there.
And Olson has dealt with the balance all hitters endure during a slump.
How does a hitter search for the adjustments without suffering paralysis by analysis?
“Yeah, there’s definitely a fine line,” Olson said. “I think deep down, you know when something is off. You’re gonna have bad games where everything is fine, you’re gonna have good games with bad swings. There’s always the part of, you step in the line, you compete with whatever you got going that day. Before the game, you try to fine-tune. If you’re feeling good, you try to keep everything going the same way. If something feels a little off, you try to address it in the cage or (batting practice). When the game starts, your swing is your swing – you gotta go compete.”
And when a big leaguer struggles, there are many voices around him. He must filter those. Use what’ll help, discard the rest.
Now, it seems Olson could be exiting his slump. And to Austin Riley, there’s never been a lack of effort.
“He works harder than anybody, really, on the swing that I’ve seen, and just is always doing homework, studying, trying to get better,” Riley said.
To this point, the Braves have struggled because of injuries and underperforming stars. Olson is one of them. The Braves haven’t had him, Riley and Marcell Ozuna hitting at the same time this season. Ozuna has hit all season and Riley has gotten hotter. Could Olson join them?
Before Sunday’s game in New York, Olson was asked if the solution to the club’s struggles is as simple as its three best hitters getting hot and carrying them.
“I mean, there’s no doubt we haven’t all clicked together this year,” he said. “Ozuna’s been swinging the bat well all year. But as far as just, like, consistent, back to back to back to back everybody putting good quality at-bats, it kind of hasn’t been there. There’s probably a ton of factors involved with that. But I think the way that we are looking at it, and the way that we should look at it, is we still got 60 games left and we haven’t played our best ball yet. If you had to choose one of peaking at the end of the year or peaking at the beginning, you would choose the end. Obviously, you want to keep it going all year – like last year, we were rolling all year long. But it’s not gonna happen like that every year.
“I think we’re looking at the past as something that’s been done and there’s nothing we can do about it now. But it doesn’t mean that, (just because) it hasn’t gone the way we wanted, that you just mail it in. We still got 60 games and a chance to really do something special and get it all clicking, and that’s kind of how we’re approaching it.”
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