An MRI of Ronald Acuña Jr.’s left knee Sunday night revealed just about the worst news the Atlanta Braves could’ve imagined, and worse than Acuña himself had thought possible hours earlier: Complete tear of the ACL, which will require season-ending surgery.
Acuña, the 2023 National League MVP and one of the most dynamic and celebrated players in baseball, was injured in the first inning of Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates when he planted his foot in the infield dirt before a would-be retreat to second base after aborting a planned stolen-base attempt.
The knee buckled and he fell backward to the infield grass, writhing in pain.
Still, after the game Acuña, 26, said he had not felt a pop or the kind of extreme lingering pain he felt when he tore the ACL in his right knee in July 2021.
He said this felt more like the sprained left ACL he sustained in a May 2018 game as a rookie when he hyperextended the knee after stepping awkwardly as he raced across first base on an infield single.
That injury kept Acuña on the injured list for a month, and he said after Sunday’s game that he expected a similar diagnosis and IL stint this time. Manager Brian Snitker had noted after the game Acuña walked off the field, with a hopeful tone that perhaps indicated it wasn’t too severe.
But Snitker said, “Oh, yeah, absolutely concerned. But we’re not going to know anything until we get him looked at, and we can’t right now.”
Because it was Sunday and a holiday weekend, there was no immediate MRI availability in Pittsburgh, so the Braves waited until they got home.
Sunday’s 8-1 win was the last game of a six-game trip for Atlanta.
Soon after the team’s charter flight landed in Atlanta, Acuña was whisked to the doctor for an MRI, which showed the damage.
The Braves said surgery has not yet been scheduled.
Acuña returned from the July 2021 right-ACL surgery less than 10 months later in late April 2022, but was slowed for much of that season with recurring soreness and inflammation in the knee.
But in 2023, with his knee fully recovered and Acuña no longer feeling apprehensive about torquing the knee as he’d been in his first year back from surgery, he produced one of the most spectacular seasons in MLB history, hitting .337 with 41 homers, 106 RBIs and a majors-leading 73 stolen bases and leading the NL with 1.012 OPS.
Acuña missed part of spring training this year with inflammation in the meniscus of his right knee, coincidentally stemming from an incident on the bases between second and third, when he was caught in a rundown in a Feb. 29 split-squad game against the Minnesota Twins.
He has struggled this season, hitting .250 with four homers, 15 RBIs, 16 stolen bases and a .716 OPS, nearly 200 points below his .904 career OPS. But Acuña has said he’s felt healthy and strong all year, and lately he had begun to hit more balls harder and cut down on his strikeout rate, though it was still nearly twice his career-low rate from a year ago.
He led off Sunday’s game with a lined double off the center-field wall, Acuña’s fourth extra-base hit in 31 at-bats over the past eight games.
One out later, he was going to try to steal third base on catcher Joey Bart’s throw back to the pitcher.
“He saw the catcher throw the ball back to the pitcher very slow and he was timing it out so he could go to third,” said Braves coach Eddie Perez, translating for Acuña in the postgame interview at Pittsburgh.
“But then at that moment (Bart) threw it hard, so he had to come back. That’s when he felt it.”
As he lay on the ground, Acuña said initially he was frightened.
“Yeah, he got scared a lot because he felt the pain in the beginning, but then it’s been going away for a while,” Perez said, translating Acuña’s response.
But while the pain did not persist as it had when he tore his right ACL in 2021, the injury was indeed the same, this time to his other knee.
Acuña had been in tears when he came off the field after tearing the right ACL in Miami in 2021.
When he came off the field Sunday, he looked more frustrated than anything else. Afterward, Acuña said that was accurate.
“Yeah, he said he feels very bad because everything about the knee and whatever he’s been going through,” Perez said, before quoting Acuña saying, “I just feel bad, but hopefully everything’s going to go well this time.”
Unfortunately for the Braves and their star right fielder and leadoff man, everything didn’t go well with the MRI.
It went terribly.