{"id":21636,"date":"2019-06-30T14:19:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T18:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=21636"},"modified":"2019-06-30T14:19:20","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T18:19:20","slug":"report-ronald-acuna-jr-to-participate-in-2019-home-run-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/06\/30\/report-ronald-acuna-jr-to-participate-in-2019-home-run-derby\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. to Participate in 2019 Home Run Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just days after being named as a starting outfielder for the National League in the 2019 MLB All-Star Game, Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. has now been named to the field of Home Run Derby participants. This source has yet to be confirmed by Acu\u00f1a or the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/atlanta-braves\/\" target=\"_self\">Atlanta Braves<\/a>, but all signs point to the phenom participating in the upcoming Derby.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"ro\">Source: Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr will participate in the HR Derby.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel \u00c1lvarez Montes (@DaniAlvarez_16) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DaniAlvarez_16\/status\/1145347672817242118?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><b>Report: Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. to Participate\u00a0in 2019 Home Run Derby<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Joining a Field of Young Talent<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Acu\u00f1a will join a Home Run Derby field that is already stacked with young talent. Included in the Derby are young superstars Pete Alonso, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and Christian Yelich. For a sport that is trying to showcase its young, exciting talent, this is a great way for Major League Baseball to promote these exceptional players for fans in one of the biggest events of the season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Pete Alonso<br \/>\nVladimir Guerrero Jr<br \/>\nRonald Acuna Jr<br \/>\nChristian Yelich<\/p>\n<p>That is a great way to get people interested in the Home Run Derby. Bring the top young, exciting players. I am pumped for it<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Joe DeMayo (@PSLToFlushing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PSLToFlushing\/status\/1145349945085636608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>Acu\u00f1a Is the Perfect Fit<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Very few players can hit a baseball as hard and far as Acu\u00f1a can in a live game, not to mention the fact that this is going to pretty much be batting practice for the budding superstar. The Derby is meant to be for the game&#8217;s best sluggers, and Acu\u00f1a is just that. The Braves star has hit 19 home runs on the year and has an Expected Slugging Percentage of .558\u00a0\u2014 top 6% of the league.\u00a0Expect to see some &#8216;di\u00f1gers&#8217; on July 8th in Cleveland.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. treats the first pitch he sees like a BP fastball. ? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PJyWT73GkI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PJyWT73GkI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 FOX Sports South (@FOXSportsSouth) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FOXSportsSouth\/status\/1143673730129944576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 26, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"CFuiJu4ST3h9DC8OG-VDpg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1151741203\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'CFuiJu4ST3h9DC8OG-VDpg',sig:'klgVU0dRZGAWKmWbrYQHLG72-yLkIyS_5L0XsbXThGE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1151741203',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just days after being named as a starting outfielder for the National League in the 2019 MLB All-Star Game, Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. has now been named to the field of Home Run Derby participants. This source has yet to be confirmed by Acu\u00f1a or the Atlanta Braves, but all signs point to the phenom participating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2924,"featured_media":21657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2,1071],"tags":[48,404,2402,1982,640],"class_list":["post-21636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braves","category-featured","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-christian-yelich","tag-pete-alonso","tag-ronald-acuna-jr","tag-vladimir-guerrero-jr"],"modified_by":"Evan Thompson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}