Matt Olson will replace Ronald Acuña Jr. in the Home Run Derby

Acuña will be passing the torch to the NL’s joint-leader in fWAR among first basemen

Earlier this week, Ronald Acuña Jr. was a late scratch from the series opener in Sacramento against the Athletics due to a back ailment. Fortunately, Acuña’s back woes only kept him out of one game and it didn’t take him long to return to the lineup at all. There was also a question of whether or not the injury would knock him out of both the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game itself.

As it turned out, despite the fact that it wasn’t serious enough to keep him out of the lineup going forward, it was enough to cost him a spot in this year’s Home Run Derby. That’s the bad news — the good news is that the Atlanta Braves will still be represented in the Home Run Derby and now it’ll be Matt Olson swinging for the fences instead of Acuña.

Olson will be heading into the event with 17 home runs and .214 in Isolated Power — both of which have him placed fourth among qualified NL outfielders. He’s also in the 96th percentile of all batters when it comes to Hard Hit percentage and he’s in the 97th percentile when it comes to Average Exit Velocity, so we’ll see if it translates to taking big swings in a short period of time. While Acuña has certainly been on a tear as of late at the plate, Olson is clearly no slouch in the power hitting department and it wouldn’t be shocking at all if Olson put on a very creditable showing in the big event this Monday evening.

Olson will be joining a field that includes Byron Buxton, Junior Caminero, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Oneil Cruz, MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh, Brent Rooker, and James Wood. The big event will kick off on 8:00 p.m. ET and can be watched and streamed on ESPN.