On Tuesday, Ronald Acuña Jr. put together a classic Ronald Acuña Jr. performance, going 3-for-4 with an RBI. He drove the run in on the prototypical Acuña swing, as he took a cutter on the corner of the zone and drove it back up the middle.
The only bad news for the Braves was that it was the only run the team scored in a 4-1 loss to the Brewers. Wednesday went much better as not did Acuña Jr. go 3-5 with a homer, but the Braves also managed to secure a series win which has been hard to come by these days.
While Acuña’s production against the backdrop of his team’s struggles hasn’t reached Tungsten Arm O'Doyle levels, it’s clear that the Braves’ struggles on the field are overshadowing another strong season from the former MVP.
Ronald Acuña Jr.’s insane return has been lost amidst Braves’ 2025 collapse
Acuña entered play on Wednesday slashing .333/.425/.603 with five home runs and nine RBI in just 17 games. He’s been worth 0.9 bWAR in that time frame — making him the seventh-most valuable Brave by that metric despite playing in just 25% of the team’s games.
As our Chase Owens pointed out earlier this week, he’s off to a better pace now than during his 2023 MVP season.
But all of that doesn’t seem real given how the Braves have circled the drain this season. They have a clear deficiency at shortstop, a bullpen that implodes on the regular and a starting rotation that suffered a huge blow earlier this month when AJ Smith-Shawver suffered a season-ending arm injury.
While Acuña Jr. has a MVP, three Silver Sluggers and four All-Star nods on his résumé, he’s never been a part of a losing season. The worst part of all of this is that Acuña will likely never get a part to do so this year.
He missed the first two months of the season recovering from last year’s knee injury, and the Braves were 24-25 when he made his season debut. They’ve gone 4-13 since despite Acuña’s incredible production.
The Braves have a wRC+ of 91 across that same span. Imagine what it would be like if Acuña Jr. wasn’t in the lineup.
That thought is maybe the worst part of this. The Braves have some bonafide MLB hitters in their lineup in the form of Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, Sean Murphy, Marcell Ozuna and Drake Baldwin, but the rest of the roster just isn’t up to snuff. Baseball is a sport where you need a balanced team to survive as much as you need a superstar. The Braves have the superstar part down, but everything else is still a work in progress.
Even though Acuña’s only played in a handful of games this year, he deserves to represent the Braves at Truist Field in the All-Star Game. It might be the only time he gets to play in the spotlight this year.