Former Braves player goes off on Ronald Acuna Jr.

A former Atlanta Braves player had some sharp words for Ronald Acuna Jr. over Acuna’s recent social media post about manager Brian Snitker.

Longtime Braves outfielder Jeff Francoeur was highly critical of Acuna and outright accused him of being a bad teammate over his social media activity. In a since-deleted social media post, Acuna was not happy after Snitker essentially gave outfielder Jarred Kelenic a pass for not running out a fly ball despite having benched Acuna for the same transgression in the past.

Francoeur argued that the two situations were not the same, and that Acuna was warned multiple times before ultimately being benched for lack of hustle. He was also not happy with Acuna for sounding off on social media while rehabbing an ACL injury.

“There are 26 guys in that locker room that are busting their a– every single day, and they are taking crap for all of us, all of the national media,” Francoeur said. “Those guys are trying their butts off every single day. You finally get something going in your direction, and you’ve got a guy who’s supposed to be your teammate tweeting, probably out in L.A., something that is completely meaningless and stupid. Where’s the tweet last week, stick in there, boys, let’s grind this thing out. Where is any of that?”

Francoeur also called out a column from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, which argued that Acuna had a point in calling out a perceived double standard. Francoeur referred to it as the “dumbest article I’ve ever seen,” and dismissed any insinuation that racism played a role in Snitker’s handling of the situations.

“You want to go farther with context? Ronald Acuna was warned time after time after time after time, like ten times, to run before he ever got yanked. This is the first time Jarred Kelenic’s ever done it,” Francoeur said. “Also, to give you context, Jarred Kelenic was sitting in that man’s office Easter Sunday morning waiting for him for 30 minutes crying and apologizing. So there’s your context on that.”

Francoeur also accused Acuna of “burying” Kelenic by making the post, which made the incident a national story when it otherwise would not have been.