Reinforcements arriving post-Acu?a Jr. injury

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ATLANTA -- Braves fans will be enjoying more than just the Memorial Day holiday. If all goes according to plan, they will be spending Monday watching Sean Murphy and Austin Riley play in the same game for the first time since Opening Day.

Or so it seemed.

I wrote those words at 10:30 a.m. ET Sunday, or approximately three hours before Ronald Acu?a Jr. suffered a full tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. The reigning National League MVP will undergo a major knee surgery and will miss a significant portion of a season for the second time in less than three years.

Can the Braves win the World Series like they did in 2021, when Acu?a tore the ACL in his right knee? Well, that depends on whether president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos can acquire Jorge Soler, Joc Pederson and Eddie Rosario before the Trade Deadline. He doesn’t even have to trade for Adam Duvall this time around.

The Braves' challenge to win it all again without Acu?a will be even more difficult this time around. They will need to do so without both Acu?a and Spencer Strider, who made just one healthy start before undergoing his second ulnar collateral ligament right elbow surgery in the past five years.

The Braves have lost a top NL MVP Award candidate and a top NL Cy Young Award candidate, and June hasn’t even arrived yet.

Instead of dwelling on what they have lost, the Braves can only focus on what they have and what is now coming back.

The Braves persevered after Murphy strained his left oblique during the season opener in Philadelphia. But their offensive malaise has become even more maddening as Riley has missed two weeks with a sore left side that initially seemed like a minor ailment.

Riley has been ready to play since Friday. So, God help whoever tries to keep him out of the lineup again on Monday.

The Braves have scored one run or fewer in seven of 50 games this year. But they have done so in four of their past 11 games. It’s not a coincidence that this occurred within the span of 13 games missed by Riley.

Some of you are now saying, “It’s not like Riley was doing anything, anyhow.” He hit .245 with three homers and a .707 OPS in 37 games before enduring this ailment. So, yeah, he was struggling. But if he was hitting .045 with no homers and a .100 OPS, I’d rather have spent the past two weeks having him as my third baseman, rather than Zack Short.

No offense to Short. In fact, I’m sure he’d agree.

And as valuable as Chadwick Tromp has been as the backup catcher, it’s obvious the Braves would have much rather had Murphy behind the plate for 60-70 percent of their games over the past two months.

As Murphy now carries the load, 35-year-old Travis d’Arnaud should benefit. Murphy’s fatigue down the stretch last year was influenced by the fact he served as an everyday catcher when d’Arnaud missed a month recovering from his fourth concussion.

d’Arnaud might avoid a similar late-season fatigue because Tromp shared a fair amount of the load going back to the season’s first series. But after producing a 1.019 OPS over his first 20 games, d’Arnaud has a .669 OPS over his past 22 games.

Getting back to Riley, the quality of contact he has produced this season doesn’t jibe with his actual statistics. As for Matt Olson, he has endured even more misfortune. Well, maybe not Sunday, when he doubled and hit a ball into Pittsburgh’s Allegheny River for the second time in three seasons.

Entering Sunday

Olson
.422 slugging percentage
.496 expected slugging percentage
.326 weighted on-base average
.367 expected weighted on-base average

Riley
.388 slugging percentage
.454 expected slugging percentage
.315 weighted on-base average
.337 expected weighted on-base average

These numbers indicate Olson could take off soon. He hit for power throughout last season, but he began raising his home run rate and dropping his strikeout rate in the middle of June. By the time October arrived, he had hit 54 homers and constructed a .604 slugging percentage.

Riley has a .707 OPS through 163 plate appearances. He had a .719 OPS through 172 plate appearances last year and still ended up with 37 homers, his third straight 30-homer season.

There’s still plenty of star power on this Braves’ roster, and this would be a good time for them to once again experience a June boom.