Welp! An Atlanta Braves outfielder is going on the IL — just not the one who had apparently been close to making a trip to the IL for this past week. Instead of Michael Harris II taking that trip, it’ll be Ronald Acuña Jr. after he strained his left hamstring leaving the batter’s box during Saturday’s win over the Rockies.
Acuña has officially been placed on the 10-day IL and outfielder José Azócar has been called up in order to fill Acuña’s spot on the roster for the time being.
Of course, how long Acuña ends up being out depends on the severity of the strain. If it’s a Grade 1 strain then this should just be a straight-up 10-day stint on the IL. We know it’s probably not a Grade 3 strain since that likely would’ve qualified as a tear and Grade 2 might require a somewhat extended absence with a rehab stint involved. So yeah, here’s hoping that it’s just Grade 1 since that wouldn’t be too awful — and also another truly severe leg injury the last thing Acuña needs in his career at the moment.
Advertisement
Ronald Acuña Jr. will be heading to the IL after having a somewhat slow start to the season, for his standards at least. He’s been hitting .252/.362/.378 with a .335 wOBA, .381 xwOBA and 11 wRC+ with two home runs. That’s definitely below the standard level of production that you’d like to see from Acuña but at least his underlying stats (especially his xwOBA) seemed to indicate that a turnaround was likely going to come at some point. Now, the turnaround will be complicated a bit as he recovers from this hamstring injury.
Meanwhile, José Azócar will be making his first appearance for the Braves since June of last year. He made a couple of appearances as a substitute and and only made one plate appearance during that time, which was a fly out to center field — against the Rockies, no less. Azócar has been doing fine at the Triple-A level so far as he’s hit at a .270/.348/.420 clip with a .351 wOBA and a 106 wRC+, which is to say that we probably shouldn’t be expecting him to set the world on fire while he’s up.
Also involved in this news: Hunter Stratton has been optioned down to Triple-A as the corresponding move for the inevitable Spencer Strider activation. Stratton’s only appearance for the Braves came on Saturday night, which is when he pitched a scoreless ninth inning to seal a very comfortable series win for the Braves over the Rockies. He’ll now be rejoining the Stripers, which is where he has a 4.50 ERA and 3.82 FIP over 11 appearances and 12 innings pitched at that level so far.
Strider will now attempt to have a successful season debut at Coors Field. It’s certainly a tricky proposition but one where there’s not a lot of pressure considering the fact that they’ve already clinched yet another series win and have gotten off to a fantastic start to the season, overall. Still, it’s a bit of a bummer that as one core player of this Braves team gets activated, another core player heads to the IL. So it goes for this team, I suppose.
Advertisement
[UPDATE 1:30 p.m. ET]: It is, in fact, a Grade 1 strain for Acuña (per report from Chad Bishop of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Granted, you don’t want to see him go on the IL at all but if it’s a Grade 1 strain then he’s looking at a recovery time of 2-3 weeks — maybe even just 10 days if it’s a best-case scenario. All things considered, we’ll take that.
Read the full article here