Alex Anthopoulos comments on Ronald Acuña Jr.’s timeline to return

Ronald Acuña Jr.‘s rehab assignment began last week, and the 2023 NL MVP hasn’t stopped hitting ever since. He homered in his first game back with the Florida Complex League and is hitting .500 with a .750 on-base percentage and one homer since joining the Gwinnett Stripers.

All of this has Braves Country eager for his return, and wondering when exactly that might be, which general manager Alex Anthopoulos discussed with The New York Post’s Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman.

“He (Acuña) is traveling with the minor-league team,” Alex Anthopoulos said. “He will be spending — we don’t have days per se — but we played him back to back days in the outfield for six innings. He played a third day in a row where he was the DH. We’d like to get him as close to nine innings as we can in the field. We feel pretty good about his timing at the plate in his at-bats. Most of the time when you send these position players on rehab assignments it’s about getting at-bats, getting timing. He’s been playing in sim games and live batting practices since Spring Training opened.”

“This is about just getting his legs underneath him. He’s not attempted a stolen base, and he’s not played nine innings in the field. So, we’ll spend the week working him through that. We’ll check in daily with the staff, but you should see the workload start to increase starting on Tuesday. Day game Wednesday on the road, so he’ll be off and then play again on Thursday. So, he’ll play two of the next three. We’ll continue to see how he does, but he’s getting very, very close.”

Many projected, myself induced, that a May 23rd return at Truist Park made a lot of sense. Alex Anthopoulos’ comments didn’t totally shut that down, but it does feel as if the following series on the road against the Philadelphia Phillies is a little more realistic.

Regardless, the return of Ronald Acuña Jr. is imminent, and his rehab assignment continues tonight in Louisville.