That’s a lot better than it could’ve been!
After the debacle that led to Ronald Acuña Jr. landing on the IL with “right Achilles inflammation,” it would’ve been understandable if everybody was on pins and needles hoping for the best. Fortunately, the Atlanta Braves themselves seemed pretty confident that it wasn’t a major injury and it turns out that the MRI will corroborate that opinion.
Mark Bowman of MLB.com is reporting that Acuña has been diagnosed with a Grade 1 calf strain and will be expected to miss two-to-three weeks as a result of the injury.
Acuna has a Grade 1 right calf strain.
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) July 30, 2025
That elicited a huge sigh of relief over here, since hearing the word “Achilles” in sports is never good unless you’re an underdog talking about where you’re going to attack the favorite at. Fortunately, it does appear that Acuña has avoided another devastating injury, which would’ve just been a case of some of the most rotten luck you would’ve ever seen for a player of his caliber.
While the news is certainly positive, it’s still wild that this even happened in the first place. With all due respect to the players who want to be out there on a day-to-day basis, let’s be honest here: The season is a wash. The Braves are currently in possession of the second-best odds for next year’s MLB Draft Lottery and with two months of the season to go, it would be a crying shame to lose any of the core players to something preventable.
Yes, this injury could’ve happened at any time but it was still pretty inexcusable from everybody involved (including Acuña, himself) that he was out there on Tuesday night after complaining about the injury on Monday night. Playing hurt might seem admirable but usually it’s not worth the trouble to have a diminished version of a player out there — especially in a situation such as this. Personally, this was reminiscent of the Freddie Freeman “wet newspaper” incident that happened here all those years ago. Something’s got to change going forward to avoid scares like this because there’s going to come a time when toughing it out makes the injury even worse and I’d rather not find out about that situation.
So yeah, all in all, this is a positive result that could’ve been avoided completely. Welcome to the nightmare that is the 2025 Atlanta Braves season.