Ronald Acuña Jr. out for 2024 season with torn left ACL

TITLE: Ronald Acuña Jr. out for 2024 season due to torn left ACL

The Atlanta Braves received the news they had been dreading.

And they lost it again.

The Braves confirmed this evening that the injury suffered by Ronald Acuna Jr. During Sunday’s victory against the Pittsburgh Pirates, there was a complete tear in his left ACL. He will have surgery “at a date yet to be determined” and will miss the rest of the 2024 season.

It’s a tough pill to swallow for last season’s Most Valuable Player, as he will once again not only miss significant time, but also face a lengthy rehabilitation process and then be forced to adapting to major league competition again.

In 2021, Acuña was off to one of the best statistical starts of his career to that time, hitting .283/.394/.596 with 24 home runs and 17 stolen bases when he tore his right ACL while trying to make a jump against Miami. Marlins. He missed the remaining 80 games of the 2021 season and the entire World Championship Series for Atlanta.

Returning in late April 2022, Acuña clearly wasn’t himself, hitting .266/.351/.413 with just fifteen home runs while leading the National League with eleven times caught stealing. He admitted during the 2023 season that he struggled with the return-to-play process, particularly gaining mental comfort and safety around the surgically repaired knee.

This isn’t Acuña’s first left knee injury, either. In May 2018, he missed about a month after hyperextending his knee during a Sunday getaway game against the Boston Red Sox while trying to hit an infield single. Acuña told the media after today’s game that this injury was similar to the one from 2018 and that he expected to miss about a month before returning to play.

But with tonight’s MRI results being pretty conclusive that it’s a complete torn left ACL, Acuña is once again facing an offseason of rehab to get back on the field. The operation, which is not yet scheduled, will likely be performed again by Dr. Neal El Attrache, the sports medicine surgeon who not only performed Acuña’s repair in 2021, but also evaluated him for a right knee injury during spring training.

Acuña suffered an “irritated meniscus” in his right knee during spring training, which occurred while running down the base paths. He missed about two weeks of play in the Grapefruit League, but after rest and some rehab work, he returned in time to make the opening day roster for the team’s first game at Philadelphia.

Despite not missing a game so far in 2024, Acuña has not reached the high standard he set last season, when he was the unanimous choice for League Most Valuable Player national against Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Acuña’s season will end with the outfielder hitting just .246/.348/.356, a far cry from last season’s .337/.416/.596 line.

Adam Duvall and Jarred Kelenic expected to assume everyday roles in Acuña’s absencewith an outfielder expected to be promoted from Triple-A Gwinnett for bench depth.