Third base in Atlanta is starting to resemble a monarchy.
Dating back to 1948, when the Braves were based in Boston, the chronological line of exceptional talent includes Bob Elliott, Eddie Mathews, Clete Boyer, Bob Horner, Terry Pendleton, Chipper Jones, and Austin Riley.
That’s three MVPs (Elliott, Pendleton, and Jones), two Hall of Famers (Mathews and Jones), a player who had a four-homer game after jumping directly from college to the majors (Horner), a bunch of All-Stars, and a young man who has the potential to emulate all of them.
That young man is Austin Riley, who started slowly this season but soon made up for last time. A 6-3, 240-pound right-handed slugger, Riley is still a kid.
Only 24, he’s now in his third full season. And he’s playing like an All-Star.
Entering the Braves game at Fenway Park Tuesday night, he ranked third in on-base percentage (.414) and fifth in both batting (.320) and slugging (.549). He had also hit an even .400 with two men out.
Benched with a .190 batting average on April 16, Riley has been raking in the six weeks since. He had two homers May 21 and two more May 23, part of 17 extra-base hits he has produced since his mid-April breather. His batting average since then is .369 (41-for-111), along with a .467 on-base percentage and .685 slugging percentage.
If he maintains that pace, the powerful Tennessee native may convince fans to vote him the starting third baseman on the National League All-Star team. All he has to do is beat out better-known veterans Nolan Arenado and Kris Bryant.
Riley’s defense, like his hitting, has also improved dramatically, though he’s not likely to end Arenado’s monopoly on the Gold Glove Award at third base. The St. Louis star has won eight in a row, all before his winter trade to the Cardinals from the Colorado Rockies.
Like Mathews, Horner, and Jones before him, Riley is making his mark with his bat. He’s already the first Braves player in the Lively Ball era (since 1920) with at least six homers and 10 extra-base hits in any seven-game span. That covers a lot of territory, including long-time home run king Hank Aaron and Mathews, both members of the 500 Home Run Club.
Riley is also the first Braves third baseman with at least two homers and five RBI in a game since Jones did it on June 7, 2009.
Before the start of the two-game Red Sox series, Riley had hit in a season-high eight straight games, batting .500 (14-for-28) during that streak. He came close to extending it with a long shot to right that was pulled back into the park by Red Sox right-fielder J.D. Martinez. Even without another Riley homer, Atlanta won, 3-1, to reach the .500 mark and stay within a game of the first-place New York Mets.
When Riley goes on a tear, he’s almost unstoppable. As a rookie in 2019, he had 18 homers in 80 games but half of them came during his first month in the majors. He also struck out with alarming frequency, keeping his batting average below .240 during his first two seasons.
Now, he’s worked his way up to fifth in the explosive Atlanta batting order. After he had hit two homers and knocked in five runs in the first three innings against Pittsburgh Sunday, Braves announcer Ben Ingram said, “The score after three innings is Austin Riley 5 and Pittsburgh 1.”
Max Fried, the winning pitcher in that game, told David O’Brien of The Athletic, “I’ve been with Austin since 2016 and at every level he had a little success trying to figure it out. He’s a smart player, a really smart and hard-working kid. So I knew that it was just a matter of time before he got comfortable and confident. You can see it in his defense, you can see it in his at-bats. He doesn’t give in, even with two strikes. He definitely has a plan and he’s sticking to it.”
Riley had to fight for his job during his first two seasons. In 2019, the Braves brought in heavy-hitting third baseman Josh Donaldson, a veteran, on a one-year, $23 million deal. He responded with one of his best seasons but then jumped league lines, signing a four-year, $92 million contract with the Minnesota Twins.
Riley responded to Donaldson’s presence by learning new positions, playing first base and the outfield corners, but many Braves fans considered him a flash-in-the-pan, another in the line of “can’t miss” Braves prospects from Brad Komminsk to Christian Bethancourt. He is changing their minds this season, however.
En route to winning National League Player of the Week honors, he had a torrid 33-game stretch that started April 17 and included baseball’s best on-base percentage (.463) and OPS (1.147) plus the second-best batting mark (.369) and slugging average (.685) in the game. Nobody has a better batting average or on-base percentage with two men out.
There are several reasons for Riley’s improvement. One is his patience at the plate, a trait stressed by Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and Chipper Jones, an extra batting coach for Atlanta home games.
Riley is also the beneficiary of patience by manager Brian Snitker, a Bobby Cox disciple who could have benched him or returned him to the minors in favor of the more experienced Johan Camargo.
Instead, Camargo was the man who made several trips to AAA Gwinnett.
The third-year slugger believes in getting off to a good start; entering play Tuesday night, he was first in the majors in first-inning on-base percentage (.583) and slugging (1.111).
Riley is not only emerging as the slugger scouts projected when he played for the Peoria Javelinas in the Arizona Fall League but is also doing it at a bargain price. Still pre-arbitration, he’s on a one-year contract that pays him $590,500.
If he continues his emergence into a dependable slugger, the Braves might consider offering him a long-term extension, as they did with two other young mainstays, Ronald Acuna, Jr. and Ozzie Albies. In the meantime, Riley realizes he could add to his bank account by providing consistent power to the Atlanta attack as the club pursues its fourth straight National League East title.
