ATLANTA (AP) — Ronald Acuña Jr. crushed his first pitch 467 feet for a home run in his dramatic return to the Atlanta Braves on Friday night.
Making his first appearance in almost one year, the 2023 NL MVP, was activated from the injured list and restored to the Braves' lineup almost one year after he tore his left ACL.
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Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. celebrates in the dugout after hitting a home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. reacts after hitting a home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. hits a home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. runs onto the field before a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. prepares to hit during batting practice before a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Acuña, in his customary leadoff position in the lineup, turned on a fastball from San Diego right-hander Nick Pivetta' and sent the ball into the seats in left-center. Acuña hesitated briefly on his jog around the bases for a shuffle step.
It was Atlanta's only offensive highlight in a 2-1 loss.
Acuña said after the game “I had a feeling” about hitting a homer in his return.
When asked if he meant he had a feeling about a first-pitch homer, Acuña said: “exactly how it happened. ... To me that's just the culmination of all the work I put in.”
Infielder Orlando Arcia, a 2023 All-Star, was designated for assignment to clear a roster spot for Acuña, who started in right field.
Acuña said through translator Franco Garcia he was “super excited, super happy” to make his return and added “I couldn't sleep that much” after receiving the news of his return on Thursday.
Braves manager Brian Snitker announced after Thursday night's 8-7 loss at Washington that Acuña would make his season debut on Friday night.
Snitker said Friday it felt good to make out his first lineup of 2025 that included Acuña.
“He’s one of those players that you better not go get a beer or whatever, because you might miss something really cool, you know?” Snitker said. “I mean, he’s that type of force, I think, in the game. I think he’s going to energize everybody. Gonna energize the fans. Gonna energize his teammates."
“Did you think he wasn't going to hit a homer on that first pitch?” Snitker said.
Acuña, the 2023 NL MVP, hurt his left knee last May 26 and had surgery on June 6. The 27-year-old played six games in the minors on a rehab assignment, going 6 for 15 with two home runs.
Acuña played in only 49 games last season, batting .250 with four homers, 15 RBIs, 16 stolen bases and a .716 OPS.
This is Acuña's second comeback from a major knee injury. He tore his right ACL on July 10, 2021, and returned the following April. When asked Friday what is different about this rehabilitation process, he said “Patience. The patience, for sure. ... I just think I'm in a much better place.”
Atlanta entered 24-25 after an 0-7 start.
“It's huge,” third baseman Austin Riley said. “The talent is there. The energy he brings, having Ronald up there at the top of the lineup. ... he can change a game at any point.”
Acuña was a unanimous NL MVP in 2023 when he hit .336 with 41 home runs, 106 RBIs and a league-leading 1.012 OPS. Acuña also stole 73 bases that year to become the only player with 40 homers and 70 steals in one season.
Arcia, 30, was a 2023 NL All-Star when he hit .264 with 17 homers and 65 RBIs. Arcia lost his starting job due to an inability to compensate at the plate while suffering a defensive decline. He hit only .194 in 31 at-bats this season.
Snitker said he hopes Arcia would ccept a minor league assignment if he does not land another job in the majors.
“I think we all know that it's a business,” Acuña said of Arcia getting cut. “I'm happy to be back but I'm sorry that's the move.”
Nick Allen has taken over as the starting shortstop. Snitker said Luke Williams is the backup shortstop and Eli White, a part-time starter in the outfield, will see more time in the infield.
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Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. celebrates in the dugout after hitting a home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. reacts after hitting a home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. hits a home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. runs onto the field before a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acuna Jr. prepares to hit during batting practice before a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At least eight people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.
The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the protests have yet to be as widespread and intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”
“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.
Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country.
“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”
Larijani’s remarks likely referenced America’s wide military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel's 12-day war on the Islamic Republic. No one was injured, though a missile did hit a structure there.
As of Friday, no major changes had been made to U.S. troop levels in the Middle East or their preparations following Trump’s social media posts, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.
In a letter late Friday to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the U.N. Security Council, Iran's envoy asked the world body to condemn the rhetoric and reaffirm the country's "inherent right to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security, and to protect its people against any foreign interference.”
“The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation," said Amir Saeid Iravani, Iranian ambassador to the U.N.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”
Trump's online message marked a direct sign of support for the demonstrators, something other American presidents have avoided out of concern that activists would be accused of working with the West. During Iran's 2009 Green Movement demonstrations, President Barack Obama held back from publicly backing the protests — something he said in 2022 “was a mistake.”
But such White House support still carries a risk.
“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very U.S. involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei recently cited a list of Tehran’s longtime grievances regarding U.S. intervention, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and the strikes in June.
Protests continued Friday in various cities in the country, even as life largely continued unaffected in the capital, Tehran. Demonstrations have reached over 100 locations in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. It said the death toll in the demonstrations rose to eight with the death of a demonstrator in Marvdasht in Iran's Fars province.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Zahedan in Iran's restive Sistan and Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan. The burials of several demonstrators killed in the protests also took place Friday, sparking marches.
Videos purported to show mourners chasing off security force members who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran in Iran's Lorestan province.
Footage also showed Khodayari's father denying his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there were now questions about the government's claims that he served.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials. That sparked the initial protests.
The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since the June war.
Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.
A woman shows a portrait of the late commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, on her smartphone during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wave Iranian flags as one of them holds up a poster of the late commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, during a ceremony commemorating his death anniversary at the Imam Khomeini grand mosque in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This combo shows President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. and Iranian Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Bilal Hussein)
