Ronald Acuña Jr named NL Player of the Week and Month

It's no secret that Ronald Acuña Jr is one of the premiere talents in Major League Baseball. He's been a player on people's radar for many years now even when he was just a prospect for the Atlanta Braves.

There have been some growing pains along the way with rookie mistakes, swing adjustments, and a major injury, just to name a few. However, Acuña has handled all of those things swimmingly and has become the player everyone expected him to be.

2023 has been a new year for Ronald as he's fully recovered from a knee injury that caused him to miss out on the Braves World Series run in 2021. He came back in 2022 but played timidly, as expected because the mental and physical aspects of a major injury can be tough to get through.

However, in 2023 so far, you can tell he's 100% confident in his ability and is completely healthy. He is stealing more bases than he's ever stolen and making more consistent contact than he's ever made. It is quite an experience to witness on a daily basis.

He's not slowed down once this year and is on pace for a historic season where he may hit 30+ homers and steal 60+ bases in one season. He received the most votes of all MLB players and was named to the 2023 All-Star Game. The league recognized Acuña's success for the month of June with NL Player of the Month. He also earned NL Player of the Week for the week of June 26th-July 2nd.

National League Player of the Month for June 2023

Acuña was named NL Player of the Month for his performance in June. The month was great for the Braves and Acuña alike. The Venezuelan native batted .356 over the month with a 1.111 OPS including 9 home runs, 22 runs batted in, and 14 stolen bases.

Those are impressive numbers and the ability to be that consistent over an entire month, is out of this world. His WAR for the month was 1.8 and the second-best in all of baseball among right fielders.

Ronald also carried the best wRC+ when ranked among the other NL right fielders at 194 which was almost 20 points higher than Mookie Betts who was second-best in the month. Another impressive stat was his walk and strikeout percentages. Acuña walked 10.1% of the time and struck out just 10.9% of the time. That shows just how well he is seeing the ball right now.

With how well he is swinging, it's understandable why Ronald chose to sit out the home run derby this year. He wanted to give other players a chance to participate but I imagine it's also to preserve how well he is swinging and not risk messing that beautiful swing up.

NL Player of the Week (June 26th-July 2nd)

In addition to Player of the Month, Acuña was also recognized as Player of the Week. For the week of June 26th-July 2nd, Acuna was 9-for-19 with a 1.916 OPS, a .474 average, 5 HR, 7 RBI, and 4 SB.

It appears Ronald is going to carry that success from the month of June into July and continue to push toward his first MVP award. When you're performing at a similar pace as the favorite for the AL MVP, Shohei Ohtani, you know you're doing something special.

Acuña is one of the best players the Atlanta Braves has ever seen and you can bet these won't be the last Player of the Month/Week awards that he will receive. He's only been in the league for 5 years at this point and there's so much time left for him to surprise fans even more.

He is currently batting .336/.415/.604 with a 1.019 OPS in 83 games played. He has the eighth most homers in all of baseball with 21 of them, he's driven in 54 runs, and stolen 39 bases. He's walked 42 times and struck out just 48 times. Safe to say he is locked in for the season so stay tuned, folks!