It's reasonable that a baseball fan would want to be near Ronald Acuña Jr. right now—at least close enough to watch him ply his trade. In a season where he's played every game for the winningest team in MLB, the right fielder has put up 29 home runs, a team-best 31 doubles, a batting average of .335, and, neatest of all, a whole 61 stolen bases. That's 10 more bags pilfered than anyone else, and a hilarious 20 more than Jon Berti stole in all of 2022 when he led the damn league.
You do not, ever, have to hand it to the Atlanta Braves. But Acuña is a cool player, and on Monday night, as his team crushed the Rockies, he had one of his best nights of the year: four hits in five at-bats, plus a walk; five total RBI including a two-run homer; two more stolen bases. It was, again, a good night to be close to Ronald Acuña—to shake his hand, or pat him on the back and say "way to be."
But that is a privilege reserved for his teammates, especially in the middle of a ballgame. After a big Atlanta top of the seventh that saw Acuña single, steal, and score as the Braves took a 9-4 lead, some jokers in Denver decided it was time to get ejected in the bottom half. One fan ran onto the field and all the way to Acuña, whom he posed with for a beat before getting wrapped up by a few security guards. And then, somehow, a second fan was allowed to rush in, adding to the chaos as Acuña backed up and tripped over a guard who was holding the first guy's legs. That first fan walked away peacefully under the guidance of just one guard, while the second was hauled away by three.
"I was a little scared at first," Acuña said in the postgame. "I think the fans were out there and asking for pictures. I really couldn't say anything because at that point, security was already there and we were already kind of tangled up, but security was able to get there and everything's OK. We're all OK, and I hope they're OK."
Braves manager Brian Snitker said, "You don't want to see that happen, I know that. You don't know what they will do when they get out there. It's a scary situation." He was speaking somewhat theoretically, as he admitted to reporters he was in the bathroom when Acuña's admirers rushed the field.
The unscheduled meet-and-greet didn't appear to cause any lingering issues for the Atlanta star. In the eighth he singled and stole second, and in the ninth, he hit a bases loaded double to extend his team's lead to 13-4.
An unluckier franchise might have seen this play end with a torn ACL. But nothing—or at least not the dumbest people Colorado has to offer—appears capable of knocking the Braves off track.
