Atlanta Braves: 3 reasons benching Ronald Acuña was right decision

It was a very difficult decision for Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker to bench Ronald Acuña on Sunday, but it was the right choice.

The reaction among Atlanta Braves fans and the media seems to be pretty split on whether or not Brian Snitker should have bench Ronald Acuña after failing to run out what should have been an easy double.

After taking some time to rewatch the whole thing and listen to the post-game comments, it confirms my belief that Snit made the right decision.

Before I get too far into this, let me clearly state that I love Acuña and am beyond excited that he’s playing for my favorite team.

And there is no doubt that Snit loves Acuña as well and knows how vital he is to this team’s success.

Snit was the first one out there to stand up for Acuña after he was plunked by that gutless punk from the Miami Marlins.

Having said all that, as an old school fan, Acuña does toe the line quite often.

I understand we’re in the era of “let the kids play,” but that doesn’t excuse what Acuña did on Sunday.

My biggest problem with this “let the kids play” mentality is that sometimes it leads to a lot of selfishness and a look at me mentality — and I can not get on board with that at all. He and Josh Donaldson flipping their bats on walks is just unnecessary — in my opinion.

For the most part, I feel like Acuña hasn’t shown a ton of that and most of his celebrations are directed towards his team and not himself, but there are other times where he does cross that line for me.

What he did on Sunday was 100 percent wrong and some type of punishment was warranted.