The three-game interleague series between the Atlanta Braves and host Seattle Mariners that begins Monday will be without one superstar and perhaps a second.
Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. was placed on the 10-day injured list Sunday with a strained left hamstring suffered while running to first base the previous day in Colorado.
“The MRI showed a Grade 1 strain, so not too serious, but serious enough that we had to put him on the list,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said before Sunday’s 11-6 victory against the Rockies.
“It’s not going to be just a couple days,” Weiss continued. “It’s gonna be more than that, so we need to put him on the IL, and, hopefully, it’ll be sooner than later. No idea with these soft tissue injuries how long they’re gonna take, but I think the silver lining is that the MRI showed it wasn’t too serious.”
Acuna had played in each of the Braves’ first 34 games this season after appearing in just 144 over the previous two campaigns after suffering a torn ACL in May 2024. The five-time All-Star and 2023 National League MVP had heated up after a slow start, batting .381 over his past six games.
“All things considered, it could have been a lot worse,” Weiss said.
Meanwhile, Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, coming off a record 60-homer season, sat out the past two games with discomfort in his right side that required an MRI.
“Cal is continuing to make strides,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said before Sunday’s 4-1 loss to visiting Kansas City. “He’s got a little soreness in the side. We’ll continue to look at it day to day and go from there and continue to assess it.”
Raleigh, who has never been on the injured list in his six-year major league career, said he’s hoping to avoid that.
He said he first felt the discomfort after Friday’s game.
“Didn’t really think too much of it,” Raleigh said. “It’s normal. Things happen in games throughout the season, but I woke up the next day and it stayed sore, and I let the staff know. I was just trying to play it safe.”
Raleigh, who won the Home Run Derby at last year’s All-Star Game in Atlanta, also recently heated up after a slow start with five homers in a seven-game span from April 20-27.
The 29-year-old said he felt much better Sunday and even took swings in the batting cage pregame to test his oblique area.
“It felt good,” he said. “(Sunday) was a good day. Obviously, everybody’s leaning on the cautionary side, which is to be expected. In the moment, you hate it, but down the line, I think they’ll pay dividends.”
While the Braves swept their three-game series in Colorado to improve to an MLB-best 25-10, the defending American League West champion Mariners lost all three to the visiting Royals to drop to 16-19.
Monday’s series opener is set to feature a pair of right-handers in Braves rookie JR Ritchie (1-0, 2.92 ERA), a Seattle-area native, and the Mariners’ Logan Gilbert (1-3, 4.03).
Ritchie, who attended high school on nearby Bainbridge Island, will be making his third major league start. After winning his debut April 23 at Washington, he didn’t get a decision Wednesday against visiting Detroit when he allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits over 5 1/3 innings, with four walks and four strikeouts in a game the Braves won 4-3 with two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
Gilbert didn’t get a decision Tuesday in a 7-1 victory at Minnesota despite allowing one run on six hits over five innings. He’s 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA in two career starts against Atlanta.
–Field Level Media
