The day Braves’ fans and fantasy managers have been waiting for all season has finally arrived! Ronald Acuna Jr. is back! The 27-year-old superstar blew out his knee last year while running the bases against the Pirates and has gone through a long rehab that delayed his season debut until today. Whoever had May 23 in the pool, you get the win! If you can’t wait to jump on the Acuna express like me, let’s find some fun Acuna prop bets to target for Friday night’s home game against the Padres.
Acuna’s Braves will host the Padres at 7:15 p.m. ET. The home team is favored at -180 on the moneyline with a game total of 7.5 combined runs in what is expected to be a well-pitched game between Chris Sale and Nick Pivetta, former teammates in Boston.
Here’s my top Ronald Acuna prop bet for his return.
Ronald Acuna Jr. over 0.5 doubles (+290)
This is a high-risk play, so if you want to be safe and play something “safe” like 2+ total bases at -115, I get it. A double gets you that win too, but you can sprinkle in a little of this spicy number on top of that 2+ total base prop to send your winning to the next level.
Acuna had two doubles, two singles, and two home runs in his six rehab games, going 6-for-15 (.400) with a double in Game 2 and Game 6 of his week-long stay with the Gwinnett Stripers. Acuna had a career-high 35 doubles in 2023 and had eight doubles in his 49 games last year before getting injured. He was hitting .250 with four homers and a .322 wOBA before the injury, but he looked back to full strength and ready to roll to even better numbers in his return.
In his career against Pivetta, Acuna is 7-for-30 (.233) with four walks, and two of those seven hits have been doubles. You can choose to go with the 2+ total bases with multiple paths to victory in that matchup, or you can swing for the fences and look for a wall-ball double for the big win. Etiher way, let’s just be glad Acuna’s back in action and baseball’s more exciting because of it!
