The Evening TiltWednesday, July 29, 2026

The Braves split a doubleheader at Citi Field, and the two games told cleanly different stories.

Game 1 belonged to the Mets, 3-2. Matt Olson hit his 28th home run to tie it in the sixth. Carson Benge doubled off Dylan Dodd an inning later for the go-ahead run. The Braves couldn’t hold a lead — the recurring problem in a rotation stretched thin by injury.

Game 2 belonged to Chris Sale, 1-0. Six innings, two hits, nine strikeouts, no walks. Jim Jarvis doubled in the sixth, Olson singled him home, and Sale’s bullpen — Didier Fuentes, Dylan Lee, Raisel Iglesias — threw three perfect innings to close it. Twenty-two saves for Iglesias. Three strikeouts in the seventh for Fuentes, who is 20.

Olson was the constant. A two-run homer in the first game. The game-winning single in the second. Three RBI across two games is a quiet Wednesday for a first baseman quietly anchoring a 63-45 club.

The split changes nothing in the standings. The Braves hold roughly five and a half games in the NL East with five days until the August 3 trade deadline. But it sharpened the argument: the Braves with Sale are a different club than the Braves without him.

Elsewhere in Atlanta: the Hawks and Falcons are deep in their offseasons. Atlanta United is on the MLS All-Star break — no Five Stripes were selected for the game in Charlotte.

One more thing: Olson’s homer was his 28th, fourth in the National League. The man they signed for eight years is earning it in year three.