Extraordinary vision and recognition/reaction times aren’t something that can be taught, and those are common foundations for the greatest hitters who ever lived.
We can’t know if Braves wunderkind Ronald Acuna will become one of the great hitters of all time, but he’s got the vision and recognition/reaction for it, and at 20, he’s off to the kind of start that leads one to believe greatness awaits.
The latest example in the brief career of the 20-year-old Venezuelan came Tuesday night, when he brightened the dull surroundings of the outdated dome that’s home to the Tampa Bay Rays by reacting to and pulverizing a full-count slider from Rays left-hander Blake Snell, an emerging ace. It was the only scoring in a 1-0 Braves win.
Acuna was the youngest player to homer in a 1-0 game since 1935, when the Cubs’ Phil Cavarretta did it at age 19 in a game at St. Louis.
Acuna hit the third-inning, two-out pitch far into the left-center bleachers, a shot estimated at 434 feet and with a 108.5-mph exit velocity as measured by Statcast. And here’s the thing: Acuna was thinking fastball in that situation, with the count full and Snell able to throw well-located 96-97 mph heaters with good movement.
“I was looking for a fastball. He’s got a great fastball and in that situation that’s kind of what I look for,” Acuna said through an interpreter. “And so I was just trying to get that pitch and put a good swing on it.”
But Snell also has a good slider and threw one that Acuna swung and missed for the second strike in the at-bat. He tried to get another past him with the count full, but Acuna waylaid the pitch. Put a good swing on it, and then some.
“I feel like I’ve been able to adapt a little to the pitchers since I’ve been up in the big leagues,” Acuna said. “That’s what you have to do, that’s why they call it the big leagues.”
The first-place Braves are 8-4 since Acuna was called from Triple-A, and the youngest player in the majors has hit .320 (16-for-50) with five doubles, three homers, three walks, 10 strikeouts and a .358 OBP and robust .600 slugging percentage.
“He sees the ball really early out of the pitcher’s hand,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said after Tuesday’s win, “and I guess that’s one of those things that good hitters do. ... He sees the ball. I don’t know, he identifies the (pitch) really early. That was a strike, and he hammered it.”
Snell is 4-1 with a 1.82 ERA and .182 opponents’ average in his past six starts. The loss came Tuesday, when he allowed only four hits and two walks in 6-1/3 innings against the Braves.
That one pitch to Acuna – or, rather, what Acuna did to that pitch – was the difference in the game.
“I liked the pitch,” Snell said. “It’s my fault for getting 3-2 on him. I think it would’ve played out differently if I was ahead; I feel that way with anyone. Getting 3-2, he made a good swing and made me pay for it. Good job to him.”
Acuna swung and missed an 87-mph slider to push the count to 2-2, a pitcher’s count. Then he took a 96-mph fastball a little above the strike zone for ball 3. Then, the full-count slider. This time Snell left it a little too high, not down like the one Acuna swung and missed before.
That Acuna was able to get the count full was no surprise to Snitker or Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, who’ve remarked since March about Acuna’s patience. It’s another quality that he has in abundance, unlike most hitters his age -- even most elite prospects.
“It’s what we saw in spring training,” Seitzer said. “I was so impressed with his pitch recognition the last two springs that we’ve seen him. He sees the ball early, and that’s a gift that not every hitter has. So, then the talent takes care of itself.”
After Acuna hit a line-drive, first-inning double off Phillies ace Aaron Nola on April 27 in his third major league game, Seitzer described what was so special about the at-bat.
“Against Nola, that first AB he goes breaking ball, breaking ball, two strikes, then he’s 0-2 and he throws elevated 95 (mph fastball) that he was right on and fouled it back,” Seitzer said. “I mean, that’s a pitch that no hitter can normally get to, and he was right on it and fouled it back. Just the fact he was right on it and it was 95, just blew me away. I was like, holy crap.
“And then hit that freaking rocket on a pitch that’s this far outside (Seitzer demonstrates 5-6 inches with hands) that’s 112 (mph) off the bat for the RBI.”
Seitzer smiled, paused, and said, “He’s a talented kid. It’ll be interesting to see how his ABs unfold. I’m already seeing little tendencies, what the Phillies are trying to do to him.”
We saw another of those ABs on Tuesday, the stuff that separates Acuna.
By the way, his homer off Snell would be peak distance and exit velocity for most hitters, but not much more than average for Acuna, whose three homers have all been tape-measure shots, including a second-deck blast at Cincinnati and a mammoth 451-footer at New York before his Tuesday bullet that accounted for the only run in the Braves’ 1-0 win over the Rays.
"Every time he gets up there you know he can hit the ball hard, so it's been exciting having another good player in the lineup," said Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb, who pitched six innings and allowed two hits Tuesday for the win in his second consecutive scoreless start.
Acuna’s average exit velocity of 94.4 mph is the 10th-highest in the majors – those above him include the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Nelson Cruz and J.D. Martinez -- and 21 of the 40 balls that Acuna has put in play have left the bat at 95 mph or higher.
Reminder: He’s the youngest player in the major leagues, weighs a modest 180 and isn’t particularly muscular.
Lightning-quick hands, strong wrists. And that vision, pitch recognition and reaction time: This stuff, you can’t teach. You can just sit back and enjoy watching it displayed.
