José Ureña kept Ronald Acuña from hitting another leadoff home run by beaning him with the first pitch

How best to put this? BOOOOOOOOOOOO.

As recapped on this very site just yesterday, Ronald Acuña, Jr. is a home run magician right now. He’s hit a leadoff home run in the past three games against the Marlins and eight dingers in his last eight games as of yesterday’s Braves-Marlins matchup.

On Wednesday night, Marlins pitcher José Ureña decided that Acuña wouldn’t be hitting a leadoff home run during this particular game. And he made sure of it by beaning him with a 97mph fastball on his very first pitch of the game. Acuña would stay in the game at first only to eventually leave.

That’s a terrible look for Ureña, who was correctly ejected after the ensuing brawl alongside Braves manager Brian Snitker. Snitker was heated, and rightly so. Acuña is one of the Braves’ most promising young stars alongside Ozzie Albies and Snitker’s first instinct being “protect him at all costs and yell at anyone who hurts him” is the proper reaction here.

While the ensuing scuffle didn’t involve too many punches thrown or escalate into a full-on brawl, these two teams have the rest of Wednesday’s game and two more against each other Thursday and Friday to play so there’s a strong chance this isn’t over.

If there were any question that Ureña’s beaning of Acuña wasn’t dirty, let’s take a look at some stats that may or may not be relevant.

Huh.

Huhhhh.

HUHHHHHHHH.

To put it simply: this was some bullshit. Ureña has a suspension coming his way (even if it’s not the Galaxy Brain Take-rest of the season suspension some people want). This wasn’t retaliation, even as some people are trying to claim Acuña was bat flipping all over the place the last few games. Which he was not.

This is nothing but a cowardly way to start a game and considering Ureña was ready to rumble as soon as the pitch landed, not even trying to deny what he did, it’s only fair to call him out on that. If you want the attention for beaning a guy and then fighting about it, you get the attention for how dirty a decision it was in the first place.

The Braves are currently getting the last laugh, but hopefully that last laugh involves Acuña being healthy and back on the field hitting dingers as soon as possible.

The good news is when he does, his home run streak will still be intact. As good a silver lining as any.