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ATLANTA -- Ronald Acuña Jr.’s bid to be in the starting lineup for next month’s All-Star Game in Atlanta improved on Thursday, when he was one of the six National League outfielders who advanced to Phase 2 of the balloting process.
Acuña finished third among NL outfielders in Phase 1 of the balloting process, finishing behind the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong and the Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández. The other three outfielders to advance were the Cubs’ Kyle Tucker, the Dodgers’ Andy Pages and the Mets’ Juan Soto.
Vote totals will not carry over to the next phase. The top three vote-getters among these six players will be elected to serve as the NL’s starting outfielders.
Acuña is bidding to join Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy as the only Braves to be elected to start an All-Star Game five times. The current Braves outfielder was in the NL’s starting lineup in 2019, '22 and '23. He was elected to start in '21, but he tore his right anterior cruciate ligament three days before the game.
Voting for the second phase will run from noon ET on Monday until noon ET on Wednesday, July 2.
The All-Star Ballot will continue to be available exclusively online and via mobile devices at MLB.com/vote, all 30 club websites, the MLB App and the MLB Ballpark App. Fans may vote once per day during Phase 2, with the daily voting limit resetting each day at midnight.
Winners will be announced on Wednesday live on ESPN at 7 p.m. ET.
Acuña missed this season’s first 49 games while completing his recovery from the knee injury that cost him the final four months of the 2024 campaign. But he has spent the past month proving he remains one of the game’s elite players, even with two surgically repaired anterior cruciate ligaments.
Before he went 0-for-4 in Thursday night's loss to the Mets, here is where Acuña ranked among all MLB players going back to his May 23 season debut:
Average: (2nd) .383, trailing only Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich (.387)
OBP: (1st) .500
SLG: (3rd) .682, trailing Seattle’s Cal Raleigh (.781) and Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz (.699)
OPS: (1st) 1.182
Home runs: (T-11th) 9
So, Acuña was leading all NL outfielders in OBP, SLG and OPS since making his return to the top of the Braves’ lineup. He was just a few points behind Yelich in the batting average category. The only NL outfielders to hit more homers than him over the past month have been the Mets’ Juan Soto (11) and the Nationals’ James Wood (10).
Acuña’s total might be higher if, like Soto, he would have had the opportunity to bat against 20-year-old Didier Fuentes and since-demoted Austin Cox on Wednesday night.
But Acuña is playing as well as anybody could have expected. He exited Wednesday having constructed a 1.182 OPS through his first 30 games of the season.
Here is how that number ranked against his other OPS marks through the first 30 games of a season:
2018: .759
2019: .879
2020: 1.081
2021: 1.083
2022: .934
2023: 1.035
2024: .719
2025: 1.182
Acuña has already committed to participating in the T-Mobile Home Run Derby on July 14. He should create some energy that night. And the next night, he would certainly feel some energy if he is announced as part of the NL’s starting lineup.
Aaron was the only Brave who was in the starting lineup when the All-Star Game was first played in Atlanta in 1972. Chipper Jones and Andres Galarraga were the only Braves in the NL’s lineup when the game returned to Atlanta in 2000.
Acuña seems destined to join Aaron and Jones as the most iconic players, at least in terms of position players, to ever wear a Braves uniform. So, it would certainly be fitting for him to also experience being in the lineup for an All-Star Game in what is now his town.