Ronald Acuña Jr. leaned into the role Philadelphia has handed him, and the Braves turned that familiar tension into a huge division win.
On Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park, Acuña’s three-run blast in the eighth inning sparked Atlanta’s 5-4 comeback over the Phillies and sent the Braves home with the season tie-breaker in hand. The win pushed Atlanta to 7-2 against Philadelphia this year, with four meetings still left on the schedule, and left the Braves five games ahead of the second-place Phillies with 19 games remaining.
The ending came after Atlanta nearly let an impressive Tyler Mahle start get wasted because of a Mauricio Dubón error. Instead, the Braves found their timing late and finished the job in the ninth. Ozzie Albies opened the inning with a double, then scored on Austin Riley’s game-winning triple off All-Star closer Jhoan Duran.
Still, the swing everyone will remember came before that. Acuña turned on Alex McFarlane’s 100.5 mph fastball and sent it out for the game-tying homer, a blast that landed as the third-fastest pitch a Braves player has homered off of in the pitch-tracking era since 2008. Only Eddie Rosario’s homer on a 101.2 mph pitch on Sept. 1, 2021, and Matt Olson’s home run on a 101 mph pitch on April 10, 2022 came on faster offerings.
Phillies fans let Acuña hear it all weekend, and he seemed to wear that reaction like part of the uniform. After the homer, he admired the Statcast-projected 414-foot shot from the batter’s box before starting his usual trot. He added the Euro Step in front of third base and put his hands over his ears as he headed toward the plate, another chapter in a rivalry act he has played before - and one Philadelphia clearly never gets tired of booing.
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