Maybe getting a couple of days off helped Ronald Acuna Jr. break out last night… or is it too early to make that call?

No doubt: Acuna has been in a bad funk lately. While he flirted with .400 for several weeks, the past two weeks have been noticeable. Noticeably bad, that is.

Over that period, Acuna is hitting .194 with a .361 slug. And that includes last night’s 2-for-4 uprising.

Sure: he’s hitting .336 overall with a .937 OPS. So, why am I complaining? After all, it could be due to the lower back issue that sidelined the All-Star for most of a pair of games. But I think there’s something else at work, too.

Acuna’s Non-Contact Strike Percentage is Highest of Career in 2025

For the season, Acuna’s contact rate for balls in the strike zone is almost the lowest of his career:  under 77%.  It was 88% during his MVP year.  He’s also swinging at pitches in the zone less often than at any point in his career:  under 63%. 

As a result, he’s getting more called strikes than usual (15.6%), so between whiffs and watches, he’s nearly at the highest non-contact strike percentage of his career, putting pitchers in charge of his At-Bats.

I can’t complain about swinging at or contacting pitches outside the zone (especially given the second homer from last night), he’s doing that at a career-average pace. But it’s all about pitches in the zone he’s having trouble with.

Acuna is Getting a Steady Diet of Breaking Balls

What are those pitches he’s seeing?  More sliders, curves, sinkers, splitters, cutters, and even knuckle curves.  Fastballs to him are down by over 13%. That is way lower than he’s seen before.  Changeups are down, too. That’s maybe why Ronnie can’t hit lately:  bend something, put it in the strike zone, and he’s going down with a strikeout rate at the highest level in five seasons.

This is a strong trend, suggesting the league thinks they have something on him.

Consider Wednesday, July 9 in Oak… er, Sacramento. Sure, there were two homers, but then again, Mitch Spence gave up five of them- more than this club has hit in a game all year. But how did he approach Acuna?

AB #1: cutter, sinker, sinker. That last sinker kinda hung up at 92 mph in the zone. I don’t care how bad Acuna might be swinging, that’s a danger zone.

AB #2: curve, slider (fly out to left)

AB #3: curve, slider, slider. The last one went well out of the strike zone, but was a ‘frisbee’ — staying on the same plane as Acuna was strong enough to poke it out to right field.

AB #4: cutter, curve (grounder to third)

AB #5: (New pitcher) two changeups, two 4-seamers (fouled off both), 2 curves, changeup (walk)

So there you go: 17 pitches seen; just two fastballs. Everything else was an attempt to mess up his eyes.

The fact that he hit two homers may mean a couple of things: (a) The pitches weren’t very good, but (b) it might very well help his confidence level, which certainly can’t hurt. So I’ll call Wednesday night’s performance encouraging. But for now, it’s just one game. While his back may be better, I’m not nearly ready to call Acuna’s bat “healed”.

THURSDAY GAME UPDATE: *sigh*… Acuna was 0-for-5 with 3 strikeouts. Oddly, he received a steady diet of 4-seamers in this game… and simply whiffed or watched a lot of them. While this was against recent trends on pitch offerings, the results were the same.

More on Ronald Acuna Jr. from Talkin’ Tomahawk Atlanta Braves Blog

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• Time to Move Acuna Down the Lineup
• Good and Bad of Acuna’s Defense on Full Display