{"id":20709,"date":"2025-07-19T05:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T05:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20709\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T05:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T05:01:08","slug":"braves-ronald-acuna-jr-stuns-yanks-with-301-foot-outfield-assist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20709\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves’ Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. stuns Yanks with 301-foot outfield assist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jul 18, 2025, 11:31 PM ET<\/p>\n

ATLANTA — Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/a> caught the New York Yankees<\/a> off-guard with a spectacular throw to end the third inning in the Atlanta Braves<\/a>‘ series-opening 7-3 victory<\/a> Friday night.<\/p>\n

The All-Star right fielder threw out Jorbit Vivas<\/a> at third base when the runner was trying to tag up on a deep fly to the corner in right.<\/p>\n

At 301 feet — no bounces — it is the longest outfield assist this season, and the first throw of 300-plus feet with no bounces since Mookie Betts<\/a>‘ 302-foot throw to keep Ketel Marte<\/a> from stretching a double into a triple on July 31, 2020.<\/p>\n

“His accuracy is stupid,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said of Acu\u00f1a. “He’s a weapon in right field. His arm is so strong and accurate, and the ball carries, release is good. He’s special out there.”<\/p>\n

Acu\u00f1a caught the ball just in front of the warning track with his back to the infield. He spun and fired a throw that reached third base just in time for Nacho Alvarez Jr.<\/a> to tag a slowing Vivas, who ignored third-base coach Luis Rojas’ signal to slide.<\/p>\n

“His accuracy is stupid,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said of Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. “He’s a weapon in right field. His arm is so strong and accurate, and the ball carries, release is good. He’s special out there.”\u00a0Matthew Grimes Jr.\/Atlanta Braves\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“I just always try to anticipate those plays,” Acu\u00f1a said through an interpreter. “That’s really what I always try to focus on, anticipating the play before it happens. I really wasn’t trying to do anything besides that. Thankfully, I have a good arm.”<\/p>\n

Alvarez was casual as the throw approached in an attempt to fool Vivas, who would likely have been safe if he had run hard all the way and slid.<\/p>\n

“[Vivas] got deked,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That just can’t happen. I did that all my career at third base. Just kind of play dumb, play dead. And that’s what [Vivas] read. The body language of Alvarez there just deked him. He knew it was a deep fly ball, so it caught up to him. … It’s a lesson that that can’t happen on a baseball field, especially in that situation.”<\/p>\n

It was the longest throw to complete a double play since 2021, when Adam Eaton’s throw traveled 302 feet on July 4.<\/p>\n

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jul 18, 2025, 11:31 PM ET ATLANTA — Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. caught the New York Yankees off-guard with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-20709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}