Baseball’s New Wave: The Young Superstars Taking Over the Game
Mentorship has played a large role in Acuña’s rise Playing a spring training game in 2018 against the Detroit Tigers Acuña reached first base on a single While there he started talking to Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera Also from Venezuela Cabrera grew up approximately two hours away from Acuña’s hometown of La Guaira Acuña had watched Cabrera as a child and still admires him to this day Air Acuña While in Triple-A Acuña hit a home run in each of the first two games of a series Prior to the third game teammate Rio Ruiz issued Acuña a challenge If Acuña the leadoff hitter opened the game with a home run Ruiz would buy him a pair of Air Jordans Challenge accepted And Acuña indeed crushed the first pitch of the game out of the park Ruiz delivered on his promise giving Acuña a
always kind of had pair of black and white Jordans size 11½ There’s nothing not special about him Ruiz said that We’ve relationship Acuña said He just kind of gave me advice on all the small things and all the little things to do especially once you get to the big leagues The things you need to make sure you take care of and the things you do well and do right things that will sustain your career as you move forward in the big leagues It doesn’t take much knowledge of the game to be impressed by the way the ball jumps off Acuña’s bat Just ask Cincinnati Reds pitcher Homer Bailey In the second inning of his second career game Acuña took Bailey yard He launched a slider four
rows deep into the upper deck at the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati Acuña’s first major league home run traveled an estimated 416 feet leaving the bat at a speed of 105 8 miles per hour He ended the season with a 293 batting average and 26 homers The ball explodes off his bat Jones said He’s got a great bat path His bat is in the hitting zone a long time You can’t teach that It’s God given Whoever taught him did very well It’s when Acuña puts the bat on the ball that the real fun begins Few can match Acuña’s speed on the base paths That showed during his major league debut Acuña found himself on first base with the
Braves trailing the Reds 4 3 in the eighth Then on a sharp single to left field Acuña made it all the way to third It took him 5 81 seconds to take two bases Acuña went on to score the tying run as the Braves won 5 4
