Ronald Acuña Jr. flails as Braves fall to Dodgers, and troublesome questions are coming in Atlanta: ‘I did nothing to assist the group’

ATLANTA — The face of Atlanta’s postseason collapse sat in a nook of the Braves’ locker room, blue dri-fit shirt pulled tight over his bowed head. All round Ronald Acuña Jr., the pops and slaps of hugs and daps resounded within the quiet locker room, marking the numerous farewells of a season that had ended sooner than anybody wished.

The Braves whimpered out of the postseason on Wednesday, surrendering a second straight winnable sport to the Dodgers in Atlanta after splitting the primary two in Los Angeles. Losing within the postseason is not uncommon for Atlanta — or, at this level, for any group not based mostly in Los Angeles — however the way in which Atlanta went out, meek and flailing, will sting.

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“That’s the postseason. You by no means know what you are going to get,” Braves supervisor Walt Weiss stated shortly after the ultimate out. “You have plenty of unsung heroes plenty of instances within the postseason, and typically guys battle. It’s clearly magnified since you’re taking part in underneath a microscope.”

That’s true, however you did not want a microscope to see the Braves’ struggles of their remaining two video games; they have been seen from orbit. Zero-for-11 with males in scoring place. Sixteen males left on base. Opportunity after alternative squandered time after time.

Acuña wasn’t the one Brave to battle on the plate on this sequence — he had two inconsequential singles in 15 at-bats — however he was essentially the most seen one, on condition that he is the franchise’s unquestioned star and the man whose No. 13 jersey outnumbers all of the others within the Truist Park stands. 

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“It’s actually irritating. To say I’m disenchanted can be an understatement,” Acuña stated by way of an interpreter after the sport. “I’m significantly annoyed with myself. I really feel like I did nothing to assist the group this sequence. I’m speculated to be a spark plug for my group on the market, and I by no means lit that fireplace. Extremely disenchanted, very annoyed.”

All 4 instances Acuña walked to the plate in Game 4, a Brave was on base. All 4 instances he didn’t carry them house — hanging out twice, strolling as soon as and, in his remaining at-bat of the season, grounding out to finish the Braves’ remaining scoring alternative.

That remaining, meek out — approaching the very first pitch he noticed, with Michael Harris II standing on second and the Braves trailing by two runs within the backside of the seventh — introduced out one thing that longtime observers of the Braves could not recall ever listening to earlier than: boos for a Brave. They weren’t thunderous, anti-Freddie-Freeman-level boos … however they weren’t remoted, both, they usually weren’t shy.

Acuña heard the boos and accepted them. “It’s actually irritating as a result of they’re nicely inside their rights to boo and to say what they assume and really feel,” he stated later. “I did not do something [to help the team].”