Ronald Acuña Jr. sprinted toward the right field wall, his focus glued to the baseball that appeared headed beyond it towards the Chop House. Once he reached the warning track, the outfielder stutter stepped before leaping up and snatching the ball at the wall. He then fired a laser to first base to complete the double play, and Truist Park encompassed him with roars.
Cue, the Superman theme music.
The Braves earned a 5-4 victory over the Mets on Tuesday night on a walk-off sacrifice fly, but the ninth-inning catch makes a convincing case for play of the game. Had Acuña not robbed Mets first baseman Pete Alonso of extra bases, the club likely would have had Juan Soto at third base as the go-ahead run with nobody out.
Instead, Acuña doubled them off, and a three-pitch strikeout of Jeff McNeil ended the inning. One word could perfectly encapsulate the moment — unbelievable.
“Just an unbelievable catch; unbelievable,” said Austin Riley, whose sacrifice fly ended the game in the 10th inning. “Heads up play to get the ball back in to double (Soto) off right there, that was huge.”
Acuña’s defensive play was impressive, but he also tortured the Braves’ division rivals with his bat. The Mets had a clear plan for attacking him in the batter’s box, and it resulted with the National League Player of the Week reaching base in four of his five plate appearances.
The Mets only threw Acuña two strikes in his first two trips to the plate — both ending in walks — and continued to dance around the zone in his next two at-bats. Only six of the 14 pitches Acuña saw ended up in the strike zone, and only three of those were non-borderline.
And if their pitch location was not enough evidence, the Mets confirmed their hesitancy by issuing an intentional walk to Acuña to begin the bottom of the 10th inning.
“We’re just starting to see the results of all the hard work that’s been put in,” Acuña said through team interpreter Franco Garcia. “It wasn’t a year off from training. It was the opposite. It was a year where I had to train every day.”
Acuña appears to have returned from his season-ending injury better than the player that left the Pirates’ PNC Park on that fateful Sunday afternoon in 2024. It is a small sample size of 22 games, but the outfielder is batting .392 with seven home runs, 13 RBIs and a 1.191 OPS.
Manager Brian Snitker said the fact that Acuña had been through the recovery process before — after tearing his other ACL in 2021 — helped him return stronger. He also credits the many at-bats the 27-year-old received in spring training.
“You better not go buy a beer when he’s around,” Snitker said. “Because he might do something that you’ve never seen before. He’s that kind of talent.”
And Acuña’s talent will help the Braves try to take the series from the Mets at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday.
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