Atlanta Braves fans finally got their wish on Friday as Ronald Acuña Jr. finally made his return to the Braves. While there will be a wider discussion as to what the Braves roster should look like now that he is back and Orlando Arcia is gone, the important thing is that he is back and the Braves faithful at Truist Park gave him a massive warm welcome back. To say that he responded in kind is putting it mildly.
After Chris Sale pitched a scoreless top half of the first inning, Acuña Jr. led things off for the Braves in the bottom half. Again, most seemed to have reasonable expectations for Acuña Jr. as he is just coming back from a long layoff. However, he decided to hell with that and cranked a 467 foot homer on the first pitch he saw.
Ronald Acuña Jr. hit a massive home run in his first plate appearance back from the IL
Well, you can't write the script much better than that. Ignoring for the moment that Nick Pivetta thought it was a good idea to groove a 93 mph fastball right down the middle to Acuña Jr. which would be ill-advised even if he had his leg amputated, Acuña Jr. looked great on this swing. Given that the first batted ball he hit in the big leagues in 2025 came off his bat at over 115 mph, it seems like he is a pretty good place at the plate right now.
Unfortunately, Acuña Jr. won't be able to keep that pace up for long and there is still a chance that he struggles for a bit as he gets used to the every day grind of the baseball season. However, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy this moment for what it was.