By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

They all should have known better.

Jarred Kelenic should have ran. Brian Snitker should have benched his talent. And Ronald Acuña Jr. should have addressed the double standard internally rather than taking to X to say, “If it were me, they would take me out of the game.”

Acuña, who is not with the Atlanta Braves while recovering from a torn left ACL, later deleted his controversial post. The problem for Snitker, a Braves lifer, is that his star right fielder essentially stated a fact.

Snitker removed Acuña from a game in August 2019 for the same offense Kelenic committed Saturday night; failing to run hard on a fly ball out of the batter’s box he thought would be a home run.

He also pulled Ender Inciarte for lack of hustle in July 2018 and Marcell Ozuna for the same misstep in June 2023. Do you sense a pattern?

Snitker defended Acuña when the Miami Marlins repeatedly drilled Acuña in 2018. He continued playing Ozuna when many Braves fans booed him and wanted him released during his slow start to the 2023 season. And those are just two examples.

Still, just as players make mistakes, so do managers. Snitker hardly distinguished himself with his failure to bench Kelenic and his feeble responses to reporters’ questions about the incident the past two days.

Consider what Snitker said after benching Acuña, then the reigning NL Rookie of the Year, in 2019:

“He didn’t run. You’ve got to run. It’s not going to be acceptable here. As a teammate, you’re responsible for 24 other guys. That name on the front is a lot more important than the name on the back of that jersey.

“You can’t do that. We’re trying to accomplish and do something special here, and personal things have to be put on the back burner. You just can’t let your team down like that.”

Snitker should have taken the same stance with Kelenic, a struggling player and easier target than Acuña, a future MVP. Kelenic very well could be the player sent to Triple A when Acuña rejoins the Braves, possibly in early May.

Acuña was 21 then. He is 27 now, married with two sons. The general consensus around the Braves in recent seasons was that he matured, in the way most young players do in the MLB.

His post on X, like many reactions on social media, was made in the heat of the moment. But if there’s one thing players detest in managers, it’s inconsistency. Snitker was inconsistent with Kelenic. Acuña can be forgiven for lodging an objection.

How will this play out?