In the middle of what’s been an incredibly tumultuous season to this point for the Braves, there was recently a controversy involving Jarred Kelenic, Brian Snitker, and Ronald Acuña Jr.
For those who somehow missed it, Kelenic pimped a single in a tie game and was thrown out at second. Brian Snitker didn’t notice, and even when he did, he decided there was no punishment necessary. Ronald Acuña Jr. then chose to take to Twitter to air out his displeasure with the situation because of a time he was benched for doing the same thing six years ago.
All of it was an abysmal look for the Braves, and Jeff Francoeur felt like it was his responsibility to throw gasoline on the fire with these comments on 680 The Fan.
“Let me start with this, there are 26 guys in that locker room that are busting their ass every single day, and they are taking crap from all of us, all the national media… And those guys are trying their butts off every single day,” Francoeur said on 680 The Fan. “You finally get something going in your direction and you got a guy who is supposed to be your teammate tweeting, probably out in LA, something that is completely meaningless and stupid…
“Ronald Acuña Jr. was warned time after time after time, let’s talk like 10 times, to run before he ever got yanked. This is the first time Jarred Kelenic has ever done it…
“Ronald basically buried a teammate. This wouldn’t have been a national story, ya’ll probably wouldn’t have even talked about it Monday if he did not mention it in a tweet…
“If ya’ll want even more context, let’s go back to 2019. We all remember when the Marlins hit Ronald about 10 times. I didn’t see many players out their sticking up for him, who was the first guy out of the dugout… Snit was the first one out there… And I’ll say this man, I learned from the best in Bobby Cox. I love that man, and he used to always tell me there’s nobody bigger than the A… We won a World Series without Ronald, we went to the playoffs with Ronald. You don’t have to have him…”
Harsh words from a man who has never shared the dugout with Ronald Acuña Jr. However, someone who has recently came to his defense. Dansby Swanson had this to say on the Diggin’ Deep Shows.
“To Ronald’s credit, I don’t think people realize how awesome of a dude he is, and if you go watch throughout the playoffs (2021 season) how engaged he was, like he was in the dugout,” Swanson said. “People don’t see those things, but we knew it and felt it. Having the good energy of everyone in the dugout believing that we can do this no matter who it is, who is hurt, who is healthy; We all just had one common goal of belief and bought into it and just became like a freaking juggernaut.”
That’s much more like it from a player in Dansby Swanson who has been a consummate professional since his college days.
The thing that irks a lot of the fan base when it comes to Ronald Acuña Jr. is that it always seems as if people inside the organization are eager to put him down. Freddie Freeman was notoriously hard on Acuña early in his career, and Brian Snitker didn’t mind piling on. That’s where a lot of this animosity from Acuña stems from in the first place, so it’s nice to see someone with an opinion as respected as Dansby Swanson’s take his side publicly.
Ronald Acuña Jr. may rub people the wrong way at times. He makes mistakes like the rest of us, but at the end of the day, he’s been a great teammate throughout his time in Atlanta and has one goal in mind — to deliver the Braves another World Series.
—
Photographer: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire
