Good luck finding a wall-scraping Ronald Acuna home run.
His latest shot was one of his longest. Acuna smashed a 481-foot solo homer off Cubs starter Trevor Williams in the fifth inning of the Braves’ 5-0 win Tuesday night. It was his longest home run since his 495-foot mammoth shot against the Red Sox last September.
“It just amazes me how that ball comes off that bat like that,” manager Brian Snitker said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been around anybody (where it) explodes off the bat like that guy. It’s stupid.”
The home run was the second longest in MLB this season, behind only the White Sox’s Yermin Mercedes’ 485-foot shot. Acuna’s homer bested the previous second-longest blast, produced by the Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton, by 10 feet.
It was an emphatic return to prominence for Acuna, who hadn’t recorded a hit since April 17 before the homer (a five-game span for him). The homer was Acuna’s eighth, tying him with Philadelphia’s Rhys Hoskins for the major-league lead entering Wednesday.
“To hit a home run in any part of the game is an amazing feeling,” Acuna said via team interpreter Franco Garcia. “To me, that’s the best part of the game. So when you can hit a home run like that, it feels amazing. I don’t concern myself with how far it goes out or how hard I hit it.”
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