Last Night in Baseball: Ronald Acuna Jr., MVP-Caliber Player, is Truly Back

Fox Sports

8 hours ago

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That's why we're here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days' games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn't have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Acuña is back, baby
Ronald Acuña Jr. didn't make his 2025 debut until May 24, as he was recovering from his second torn ACL and subsequent reconstructive surgery to repair it. The Braves' right fielder had a bit of a disappointing start to 2024, as well, but given the injury, he didn't have time to course correct and properly follow-up his National League MVP-winning 2023 season, in which Acuna hit .337/.416/.596 with 41 homers and 73 stolen bases. He led the majors in on-base percentage, steals, runs, and hits, the NL in OPS and OPS+, and became the first-ever 40/70 player in the history of the game, as well as just the fifth player to post a 40/40 season (Shohei Ohtani would make it six in 2024, when he became the first-ever 50/50 player).
It's been just a month, yes, but it feels pretty safe to say that the Acuna everyone was waiting for in 2024 before he blew out his knee is now back. He went deep against the Mets on Monday night, and while it was a solo shot, in a game the Braves won by the score of 3-2? It was a huge blast.
He's now batting .396/.500/.713 with nine homers and a 233 OPS+, and, in the last 10 days, has even started stealing bases again: he didn't have a single base theft from May 23 through June 12, but now has three on the season. It was the final missing piece that truly made him Acuña, and it's now back in place.
With just 28 games and 122 plate appearances under his belt, Acuna doesn't qualify as the league leader in anything at the moment, but that doesn't matter that much for Atlanta. What is important is that Acuna is back, and he's mashing, and the Braves still have life to them because of it, even if they haven't crawled back out of their sub-.500 hole just yet. If they manage to, Acuna is going to be the reason why. De La Cruz vs. the Yankees
The Yankees have been going through it of late. They snapped their six-game losing streak last Thursday, but are still 3-8 over their last 11 and 10-11 in June overall, with the latest of those losses coming against the Reds on Monday. Much of that was courtesy of Elly De La Cruz, who has been basically the opposite of the Yankees in June, in that he cannot stop hitting. He's up to .272/.348/.513 with 18 homers and 21 steals on the season, good for a career-high 129 OPS+, and with a career-low strikeout rate of 25.7%. That might still sound like a lot, but consider that De La Cruz led the majors in strikeouts last year with 218 of them after whiffing 31.3% of the time, and was at 33.7% the year before that. Slicing six percentage points off is massive, and t's showing up in his line.
Anyway, the new-and-improved De La Cruz hit a triple against the Yankees to tie the score up, 1-1…
…and then in the eighth went yard to extend Cincinnati's lead to 5-1.
De La Cruz has now hit .333/.416/.747 with 10 homers and 19 extra-base hits overall in the last month, and he's struck out just 19.5% of the time in that 113-plate appearance stretch, too. Since he's been up for a few years already, it's easy to forget that he's all of 23 years old, and already had his birthday earlier this season: we might be watching De La Cruz go from kid with potential to genuine star. Raleigh homers for fourth consecutive game
You're not going to believe this, but Cal Raleigh hit another home run. The MLB leader is now up to 32 on the season, with Aaron Judge still four behind since Big Dumper hit his own blast on Monday, as well.
You just can't leave a pitch up in the zone like that to Raleigh right now, or, well, that will happen. Every homer he hits before the All-Star break extends the record for long balls for a switch-hitter and for a primary catcher prior to that date.
What's a little funny about Raleigh's season is that it didn't actually start out all that well. He hit a few homers early on, yes, but after his first 14 games, his OPS was a pretty pedestrian .680. Since April 12, a 62-game stretch, Raleigh is batting .299/.405/.727 with 29 homers and an 1.132 OPS. Pretty good. Wood has a chance at some Nats' history
The Nationals have no shortage of promising young players that they've called up over the years. You don't even have to dip into the Montreal Expos portion of their franchise history for that to be true. James Wood is one such player – acquired from the Padres in the 2022 Juan Soto trade, he debuted in the majors in 2024, as a 21-year-old.
While facing the Padres on Monday, Wood went 3-for-5 with a home run and four RBIs, bringing his season line up to .284/.379/.569. That homer was also notable for another reason, in that it was the 31st of his career, hit in game no. 158. As MLB pointed out, that ties Wood with Bryce Harper and Juan Soto for the most in Nationals/Expos history for a player in their first 162 career games… and Wood has four more to go to take first place for himself. Not bad company to be in when you're still just 22. Clarke is making spectacular catches look routine
Denzel Clarke hasn't been able to figure out major-league pitching yet, but he's got hitters figured out. He didn't rob a home run or crash into a fence this time, no, but look at him range:
While this catch was from last week, it was named the winner of MLB's sponsored defensive play of the week – the fourth such honor for Clarke. In a row. He's only been in the majors for a month! If he can figure out how to hit even a little bit, he's going to have an MLB career full of highlights.
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