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Ronald Acuña stuns in Braves return with massive HR on first pitch he sees

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

House That Hank Built

Atlanta Braves v Pittsburgh Pirates / Justin Berl/GettyImages

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.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.