Ronald Acuña Jr. drives in four runs in zany 10-9 Braves spring win over Blue Jays
From start to finish, this was a truly wacky game to watch.
In what was quite easily the weirdest game of spring training so far, the Atlanta Braves outslugged the Toronto Blue Jays 10-9 with four of those 10 runs being driven in by none other than the reigning National League MVP, himself: Ronald Acuña Jr.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73221724/usa_today_22806409.0.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
The first inning was an extremely inauspicious one for the Braves, as Raisel Iglesias got the ball to start off the bullpen game. If you’re going to give up three hits during one appearance at any point, you don’t want those hits to be triple-homer-homer. That’s exactly how the first inning went for Iglesias, as he gave up a leadoff triple to Ernie Clement, helped bring him in with a wild pitch and then proceeded to get hit far and deep by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Daniel Vogelbach to go down 3-0 with just one out. The positive of this inning is that Iglesias did, in fact, record three strikeouts during the inning. Still, it was just one of those frames for Iglesias and it’s just good that it happened during spring training and not in an actual game.
While the first inning saw the Blue Jays jump all over the Braves, the second inning saw Toronto extend their lead thanks to a scene that wouldn’t be out of place at any Little League ballpark across America. With one out in the second, Aaron Bummer got Nathan Lukes to hit a tough bouncer into the no-man’s land area down the third base line. Bummer should’ve pocketed the ball and let Lukes
have the infield single but instead he attempted to throw him out at first. His throw got by Olson and Lukes kept going and made a push for third base. Ronald Acuña Jr. unleashed a laser beam of a throw in an attempt to gun down Lukes at third but his throw skipped by Austin Riley and just like that, Nathan Lukes had just hit a Little League home run to make it 4-0 for Toronto. Again, it’s good that this happened during spring and not during the regular season!
