Ronald Acuña Jr. at MVP Level Late in Season, What it Means for Braves

Ronald Acuña Jr. has looked as close to his old self at plate as he can get as of late.

The Atlanta Braves right fielder put on a show against the Cubs during their three-game series at Wrigley Field, further building up the momentum he's had this month.

"He's healthy and he gets on one of these streaks, he's the best player in baseball," Ozzie Albies said on Wednesday. "There's nothing else to say about that."

This effort is guiding him head-on toward a season milestone that he hasn't had since he was an MVP winner in 2023. If he can put two more balls over the fence this year, he'll have his third season with at least 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases.

Along with this season and 2023, when he had 41 home runs and 73 stolen bases, he reached this mark in 2019. That time around, he fell three stolen bases short of a 40/40 season.

Other times, he's fallen short one way or another. In 2021 and 2025, he had enough home runs but not enough stolen bases. In 2022, it was the other way around.

There's a common trend among all three of those seasons, and that's that he missed significant time. All of them were impacted by his two ACL tears, one in each knee. Small smaller injuries were mixed in there too.

For once, the ACL isn't the issue. The hamstring took its place this season, costing Acuña about two months of play. He sits at 100 games played this season, but his pace has kept up this time around.

He hasn't been limited as much in the field or on the basepaths. The power has had its outages, but since coming off the injured list in late July, it's been a steady flow of electricity.

In September alone, he's batting .339 with a 1.025 OPS, five home runs, 13 RBIs, 10 extra-base hits and a stolen base. At his current pace, he'd finish with about 21 home runs.

While the personal accomplishments are good, it also means the Braves are getting the best of him at the right time. They're in the middle of putting the finishing touches on their run for the National League East title.

Offensive outages across the lineup have dragged out this race at times, but with how Acuña and other key bats look, they should be able to finish it off.

The bats have arguably done enough to already have this race be a done deal, but they've hit some snags on the pitching side lately. Fortunately for them, they have the heart of the rotation set up to back up the offense in Houston. They just have to keep it up for a little longer.

The Braves will also get his bat in the postseason as well. It's not always a guarantee with him. They missed his presence in 2024 when they were ousted early by the Padres. He was notably absent during the 2021 World Series run as well. He helped them get there with his efforts before suffering his ACL tear, but he was missing for two of the last four postseason appearances.

In 29 playoff games, Acuña has a .257 average and an .817 OPS. It's productive numbers even if there are some ups and downs depending on the year. Having even that production would be significant, given that they're usually missing it entirely.

Expectations are at their usual level, but since 2021, it's been a series of first-round exits complemented, in the most sarcastic sense, by missing the postseason last year. This year, potentially, could be different.

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