Braves’ Ronald Acua Jr. says criticism after knee injury ‘motivated’ him in rehab

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After a scorching start to this season, Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acua Jr. spoke about some of the criticism he heard last year following his return from a torn ACL.

Speaking to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, Acua said he was “motivated” by people questioning his ability to return to his pre-injury performance levels.

“I was hearing people say, ‘He won’t run the same way anymore, he won’t be the same baseball player because people aren’t recovering well from this surgery,'” the three-time All-Star said. It was frustrating to hear people talk like that. But also, it motivated me. I trained, I trained hard, I fought and now they are wrong.”

Acua was not on the court with the Braves in the 2021 World Series run. He injured his knee on July 10 while trying to catch a fly ball from Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s bat against the Miami Marlins .

The Braves announced two weeks later that Acua had undergone surgery to repair the injury. He missed the first three weeks last season before returning to the roster on April 28.

While Acua certainly didn’t play badly in 2022, he didn’t live up to the standard he set in the four years leading up to the injury. The Venezuelan star hit .266/.351/.413 with 15 home runs and 29 stolen bases in 119 games.

Gonzalez noted that during the 2022 season, Braves coaches spoke to NFL coaches “to get an idea of ​​how running backs have recovered from ACL tears like Acua’s.” . The consensus was that it usually takes a full season and an offseason before a player returns to their pre-injury level.

This certainly seems to be the case for Acua. He has a .332/.419/.577 slash line with 11 homers, 22 stolen bases and leads all MLB position players with 2.7 FanGraphs wins over replacement.

At its current rate, Acua would finish the season with 36 home runs and 71 stolen bases. Eric Davis in 1987 and Barry Bonds in 1990 are the only players in MLB history with at least 30 homers and 50 stolen bases in a single season.

The Braves enter the National League on Friday with a 31-19 record.

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