Could Ronald Acuña Jr. be why Braves have struggled? We’re about to find out.

Some of it was warranted.

But we’re about to find out if not having the leadoff man extraordinaire in the lineup on a daily basis was more of a detriment than recognized.

The Braves received the best news of the season Thursday night when Ronald Acuña Jr. was liberated from his rehab assignment for his surgically repaired ACL after five games with the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers.

Acuña responded to the team’s post on X that he was returning for Friday’s home game against the San Diego Padres with “Vamos a divertirnos.”

Let’s have fun.

Braves fans will sign up for that.

Acuña can best goose the merriment index by being something approaching the player he was in 2023, when he won the National League MVP award after becoming the first player in MLB history to hit 40 home runs and steal 70 bases in a season.

Having a leadoff hitter with power and speed who over his career has reached base 38% of the time has a way of tilting games in that team’s favor.

Let’s run through some numbers, crunched with the aid of Stathead and FanGraphs.

In his career, Acuña has batted leadoff in 634 games. He has reached base at least twice in 345 of them, which is 54%. (That seemed really high to me, but the math works.)

The Braves were 241-104 (.699) in those games.

It would stand to reason. Obviously, a team is more likely to win when its leadoff hitter gets on base at least twice. But Acuña‘s impact on the Braves’ talented lineup is that he does it more frequently and better than the average leadoff hitter.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Last year, MLB leadoff hitters reached base at least twice 45% of the time and helped their teams win 61% of those games. Again, Acuña‘s career marks are 54% and 70%, respectively. That’s a sizable difference.

And Acuña‘s impact on the Braves could be even more weighty because they’ve been getting crumbs out of the leadoff spot so far. Through Thursday’s games, Braves leadoff hitters were 27th in MLB in on-base percentage (.279), 28th in OPS (.603), 28th in home runs (two) and tied for 24th in stolen bases (three).

A .279 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot is a crime against baseball. Consider this: Last season, No. 9 hitters throughout MLB had an on-base percentage of .280.

Yikes.

You’ll remember that Acuña was having a rough go of things before he tore his ACL. But even 2024 Acuña was running laps around what the Braves have done in the leadoff spot so far this year.

“We know how electric that guy is,” Olson said Thursday in Washington. “MVP-caliber player. To get his energy back, and lead off the game with No. 13, it’s going to be exciting.”

Is Acuña going to reinhabit his 2023 MVP self?

Given that no one has ever had a season like that, probably not, particularly in the stolen-base category.

But if he can be his average self — the one who has throughout his career helped give his team a decisive advantage a lot of the time — the Braves should look like a different team, starting Friday night against the Padres.

They do need to make something happen. With a 24-25 record after their extra-inning loss to the Washington Nationals on Thursday, the Braves were effectively tied with two teams for the ninth best record in the NL. The roster has the talent to do it, but there’s some ground to make up to earn their eighth consecutive postseason appearance, to say nothing of winning the NL East.

But if Acuña does what only he can do, yes, fun will be had.

And if not, then maybe Snitbear needs to start pulling his weight.