The Atlanta Braves won 101 games this season and earned a fifth straight NL East title, but their World Series defense ended this weekend shy of a trip to the NLCS. And really, a lot went wrong for the Braves in their NLDS series with the Phillies. It wasn’t one play … or player.
Yet, judging from Braves radio analyst Joe Simpson’s call in Game 4, you would have guessed that Ronald Acuña Jr. was responsible for the postseason letdown.
While Acuña was one of the few reliable hitters in the series for Atlanta, the Braves star was caught ball watching on J.T. Realmuto’s inside-the-park home run in Game 4. At the point the ball evaded Michael Harris II and ricocheted off the wall, Acuña had yet to move. At best, Acuña would have been able to hold Realmuto to a triple if he was actively backing up the play. It was a mistake, sure. But you almost never hear a team radio broadcast go in on a star player like Simpson did on Saturday.
Take a listen (Note: the bottom video):
J.T. Realmuto's inside-the-park homer as heard on Braves radio… dude was sick of Acuña lmaoooooo pic.twitter.com/2Z9Xzhx48a
— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) October 15, 2022
There’s no denying that Acuña could have done better there. But the Braves have also told Acuña — who is coming off a torn ACL — to take it easy running this season. It’s why we hadn’t seen him run out ground balls this season — it was an instruction from the Braves. So it’s a bit unfair to expect max effort on a fly ball to left-center field while simultaneously telling him to take it easy on the knee.
The play didn’t ultimately make much of a difference as the Braves lost, 8-3. But it was certainly a talking point heading into what will be a long offseason for the Braves.