Ronald Acuña Jr. added another Miami memory to a long list on Thursday night, and this one came with a strange twist. In the Braves’ 11-3 win at Truist Park, Acuña hit two home runs, including an eighth-inning drive that barely got over the right-field wall and a third-inning shot that turned into a two-run homer off the gloves of two Marlins outfielders.
The third-inning blast was the one that will stick around. Janson Junk got credit for allowing it, but the play belonged just as much to center fielder Esteury Ruiz and left fielder Heriberto Hernández, who collided on the left-center-field track as the ball caromed off their gloves and over the wall. Acuña had taken a few steps out of the box, dropped his bat and started a slow jog to first before stopping there, looking like he thought the ball had been caught.
He didn’t see the collision. Hernández got a glove on the ball just before Ruiz ran into him, and the ball bounced into the first row of seats beyond the left-center-field wall.
It was the kind of break that seems to follow Atlanta right now. The Braves have won eight in a row and 15 of their last 20 since the All-Star break, and after finishing off a three-game sweep, they moved to an eight-game lead in the division.
The matchup itself may have helped set up the odd play. With left-handed starter Martín Pérez on the mound, Miami leaned into a right-handed-heavy lineup and chose Ruiz as the center-field captain over Jakob Marsee, who had started in center for 100 of the club’s 116 games. Hernández was in left, and that pairing had worked side by side only 11 times this season.
Acuña has been doing damage against the Marlins for years, and Thursday pushed the damage even further. He now has 16 career multihomer games, four of them against Miami, and the Marlins have now given up the most home runs to him, with 28. Entering Thursday, he had posted a 1.036 OPS in 102 career games against them.
His first homer came just before rain delayed the start of the fourth inning. Pérez had faced the minimum through three innings, but he was forced out after the one-hour, 24-minute delay.
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