ATLANTA -- Ronald Acuña Jr. is at least a couple weeks away from returning from left knee surgery. But the 2023 National League MVP still created headlines on Sunday with a since-deleted social media post that was critical of Braves manager Brian Snitker.
“I heard about it as I was walking to the dugout,” Snitker said. “I heard something was up. I came in and they said it was down. I haven’t talked to him, so I don’t know.”
Acuña grabbed widespread immediate attention Sunday morning, when he posted “If it were me, they would take me out of the game,” on his X account. He was replying to a post that explained how Snitker had reacted to Jarred Kelenic getting thrown out at second base after admiring a long drive that hit off the top of the right-field wall on Saturday night.
The post was made approximately 90 minutes before the Braves began Sunday’s 6-2 win over the Twins. It was removed before the game began.
Snitker's response came after an Atlanta radio reporter asked the manager, “Did you say anything to Jarred after he watched that ball hit off the bat and then hit off the wall?” Snitker replied, “Did I say anything to him? Just, 'Way to swing the bat.' Was I supposed to?”
This regrettable response irritated Acuña, who was removed from a game after doing the same thing against the Dodgers on Aug. 19, 2019. That wasn’t the first or only time the young star hurt his team by not running hard out of the box on long fly balls that didn’t always clear the outfield wall.
“It’s one of those things where I [wasn’t] thinking and that’s the reaction I took,” Acuña said after that incident in 2019. “[Snitker] felt that was the decision he had to make, and I respect that decision.”
Acuña’s biggest blunder came during Game 1 of the 2019 NL Division Series, when he was stranded after being limited to a single on a 331-foot fly ball off the right-field wall. The Braves lost, 7-6, and then dropped the final two games of the best-of-five series.
Along with being a repeat offender, Acuña was also a young star with a long future in the organization. His removal was much like when Bobby Cox removed Andruw Jones immediately after the then 21-year-old center fielder lackadaisically reacted to a fly ball during the 1998 season.
“It’s just timing and everything,” Snitker said. “There’s no blanket [response] to that.”
It initially seemed like Snitker was trying to protect Kelenic. But when speaking after Sunday's game, he said he hadn’t even seen what Kelenic did coming out of the box. The outfielder drifted toward the first-base dugout while admiring the shot and was still on the dugout side of the first-base coach’s box when the ball hit off the wall.
“I don't look for him to not [hustle], because he plays with his hair on fire all the time, and he's laying out,” Snitker said. “I didn't know it until I saw it this morning.”
Kelenic was initially ruled safe at second, but he was ruled out after a replay review. The outfielder said he took it upon himself to go to Snitker’s office on Sunday to apologize. He wasn’t summoned to the office.
“I just got to be better and that won’t happen again,” Kelenic said.