Braves working to get Acuña back in form

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman's Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Ronald Acuña Jr. returned to the lineup Wednesday night after missing three straight games, and the Braves would be wise to continue giving the All-Star outfielder regular days of rest over the remainder of the regular season. It would not be fair or beneficial to continue sending Acuña out there on essentially an everyday basis and expect his knee discomfort to disappear.

Why is Acuña still experiencing discomfort more than a year after undergoing surgery to repair a torn right anterior cruciate ligament? Did he push it too hard after returning to action in late April? Should he have been left out of the lineup more frequently over the past couple months? Is this really just something players have to deal with when returning from a torn ACL?

But debating why Acuña is still dealing with pain isn’t going to help the Braves win a second straight World Series. Giving the young superstar a chance to get right before October will.

Acuña has shown he can be the game’s most exciting player. We saw flashes of his electricity when he first returned from the injured list. But those moments we saw in May and June have faded as the knee’s durability has weakened by the everyday nature of the business.

Acuña hit .316 with six homers, a .950 OPS and 11 stolen bases (14 attempts) while playing in 31 of the 41 games (76%) the Braves played from April 28-June 11. After that stretch, he hit .253 with four homers, a .686 OPS and 14 stolen bases (21 attempts) while playing in 60 of 69 games (87%) the Braves played from June 12-Aug. 28.

Now that the reset button has been pushed, Acuña will at least have a chance to get back to being himself both at the plate and on the bases. He says the knee bothers him more running than it does hitting. But he has not been close to being the same guy who spent the past couple years strolling to the plate attempting to break some kind of Statcast record on a nightly basis.

Entering Thursday, Acuña had produced an average exit velocity of 91.1 mph (93.8 mph in 2021), and he had barreled a ball in just 12.8% of his plate appearances (20.3% in 2021). His hard-hit rate dropped from 54.8% in 2021 to 50.6% this year.

Maybe getting at least one day to rest every week the rest of the regular season will allow Acuña to get back to being himself. Continuing to run him out there with the hope things would get better wasn’t going to work.

So, the Braves just have to hope a little additional rest in September will allow Acuña to be at his best in October.