Braves Briefing: Ronald Acuña Jr's power binge has him tracking for 40 homers, finally

Ronald Acuña Jr's all but wrapped up the National League MVP award.

Holding off a late-season surge from Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, Ronald's all but locked up the 2023 MVP award thanks to a .334/.414/.585 slashline with a MLB-leading 63 stolen bases. Ronald leads all of baseball in runs (127), hits (190), and total bases (333) in an NL-leading 650 plate appearances (569 at-bats).

But for most of the season, he didn't look like he had a shot at getting to forty home runs. Having changed his approach at the plate to cut his strikeout rate in half from 23.6% to a 97th percentile 11.7% (which is absurd, and we should acknowledge how drastic of an improvement that is), Ronald was still hitting balls hard but the homeruns weren't coming.

Most fair balls hit at 110+ MPH this year:

64 Acuña Jr.
63
62
61
60
59
58
57
56
55
54
53
52
51
50
49
48
47 Ohtani
46
45
44
43
42
41 Stanton, Vlad Jr.
40
39
38
37
36
35
34
33 Olson, Riley
32 Julio
31
30 Alonso
29
28 Judge pic.twitter.com/EsQIYRNRYk
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) September 8, 2023

Until now.

Ronald's hit seven homeruns in the last eleven games, including two in the series finale against St. Louis on Thursday, and now has 35 on the season with 22 games remaining.

If he can get to 40 homeruns, he'll have only the 5th 40/40 season in MLB history, joining Jose Canseco (1988), Barry Bonds (1996), Alex Rodriguez (1998), and Alfonso Soriano (2006). Only one of those players, Canseco, won the MVP in the same year as their 40/40 season.

But Ronald would also have the most stolen bases in a 40/40 season, with the highest total being 46 by Rodriguez but Acuña eclipsing that with 63 (and counting).

NL East Standings

Owing to last night's combination of Atlanta's victory over Pittsburgh and Philly's loss to Miami, the Braves magic number is now down to 8.

Team	Record	GB	Action Today
Atlanta	92-48	Magic number: 8	vs PIT
Philadelphia	77-63	15.0	vs MIA
Miami	73-68	19.5	@ PHI
NY Mets	64-76	28.0	@ MIN
Washington	63-78	29.5	vs LAD

We Wrote It

Braves Today writer Lance Dawe highlighted how this offense isn't entirely reliant on the long ball, with the Braves cashing in multiple base hits into runs often last night.

The Braves ended up hitting a pair of home runs - one from Eddie Rosario, another from Ronald Acuna Jr. - but Atlanta really focused on scoring through a thousand cuts - tallying 12 hits for their 8 runs.
It shows the versatility of the Braves' lineup.

Read the full piece HERE.

Watch highlights from Braves vs Pirates

What's next for the Atlanta Braves today?

The Braves will enter game two of the series vs the Pirates tonight at 7:20 p.m. ET in Truist Park, with the Bally Sports Southeast broadcast starting at 6PM ET to cover the Andruw Jones number retirement ceremony. Charlie Morton is on the mound for the Braves and Johan Oviedo will handle starting duties for Pittsburgh.

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