{"id":809652,"date":"2026-09-20T08:45:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/809652\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T08:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:45:21","slug":"acuna-grand-slam-leads-braves-to-6-3-win-dropping-astros-from-al-west-lead-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/809652\/","title":{"rendered":"Acu\u00f1a grand slam leads Braves to 6-3 win, dropping Astros from AL West lead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. hit a go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning, and the Atlanta Braves beat Houston 6-3 Saturday night to drop the Astros out of the AL West lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Houston (77-78) fell one game behind Texas (78-77) and trails the Chicago White Sox (79-76) by two games for the last AL wild card. The Astros had held at least a share of the division lead each day since Aug. 25.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Atlanta assured its eighth playoff berth in nine seasons on Friday and is in position to clinch its first NL East title since 2023 on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Atlanta Braves' Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. hits a grand slam during the seventh inning of a baseball...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/3KH54FPXSRAZFDP7VOBTB2ULTA.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" \/>Atlanta Braves&#8217; Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. hits a grand slam during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros in Houston, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026.(Ashley Landis | AP Photo\/Ashley Landis)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Trailing 2-1, Atlanta loaded the bases against AJ Blubaugh (5-3) and Acu\u00f1a homered off Bryan Abreu for his second grand slam this season and the fifth of his big league career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Acu\u00f1a singled and walked twice in his first three plate appearances. He has homered in three of his last four games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mike Yastrzemski added a solo homer in the eighth inning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Grant Holmes (10-5) allowed two runs and eight hits over six innings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Yainer Diaz hit an RBI double in the eighth off Dylan Lee, who struck out pinch-hitter Nelson Vel\u00e1zquez to end the inning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Raisel Iglesias pitched a perfect ninth inning for his 34th save in 37 chances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Jose Altuve had three hits for Houston, while Isaac Paredes was 2 for 3 with a home run, walk and two RBIs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Christian Walker had two hits after entering the game hitless in his previous 23 at-bats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hayden Wesneski allowed one run on four hits over 5 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Astros RHP Hunter Brown (6-3, 3.43 ERA) and Braves LHP Mart\u00edn P\u00e9rez (9-9, 3.07 ERA) start Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WANF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. hit a go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning, and the Atlanta&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[13241,42,98668,191,46,13243,5,98667,7027,139,54,3211,4,921,13242],"class_list":["post-809652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-anf","tag-astros","tag-astros-lose","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-atlanta-news-first","tag-baseball","tag-braves-beat-astros","tag-braves-win","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-mlb","tag-ronald-acuna-jr","tag-wanf"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117302495009614735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}