Austin

Riley

Riley has been limping to the finish line of the regular season, slashing just .203/.266/.339 with two homers, eight RBI and a 22/4 K/BB ratio over 64 plate appearances since the calendar flipped to September. Hopefully a day off to reset is what he needs to get back on track. Mauricio Dubon will cover third base in his absence and will bat fifth for the Braves on Sunday.

The Braves managed five straight hits against the Rays bullpen in a 0-0 game in the eighth to take a 3-0 lead. Riley’s single scored the first run, and he himself scored on a single by Ha-Seong Kim after Mike Yastrzemski got him to third base on a ground-rule double. It was Riley’s only hit of the game, and he remains mired in a deep slump, hitting .228/.275/.347 over his last 30 games with two homers and two stolen bases.

Riley strolled to the dish against Phillies’ closer Jhoan Duran in the ninth inning with the go-ahead run standing on third base with only one out. He wasted no time, ripping a first-pitch splitter up the gap in right-center to plate the go-ahead run, which proved to be the difference. Riley finished the afternoon 1-for-4 and is now slashing .224/.294/.368 with 16 homers, 66 RBI and nine stolen bases on the season.

Riley drove in two with a base hit in the eighth, extending Atlanta’s lead to 8-0. He’s been better in the second half than he was before the All-Star break, but by wRC+ it’s still been nothing more than league-average production. The Braves continue to start him every day, though he hasn’t hit higher than seventh in the order since July 24.

The Braves have him batting eighth, but Riley is hitting .290/.318/.532 this month. Unfortunately, he’s also still striking out a ton; today’s game was his fifth in row with two strikeouts.

Riley looked like his old self in this game. He demolished his home run at 108.5 mph off the bat and hammered it an estimated 438 feet. In total, he had four hard-hit balls and nearly hit for the cycle, but Luis Robert Jr. made a nice play in the right center field gap on him in the eighth inning. If that would’ve gotten down, Riley could’ve gotten three out of it. Nevertheless, another miserable season has forced the Braves to drop Riley to eighth in their lineup, but he has an .806 OPS and six home runs over his last 30 games.

Riley broke a scoreless tie in the eighth inning when he blasted a solo shot off Yankees reliever Fernando Cruz to put the Braves up 1-0. It was the 14th homer of the season for Riley, who has already homered twice in the month of August while driving in seven runs.

Riley extended the lead for Atlanta to 3-0 with a mammoth shot off John King. The 29-year-old also singled, but the two reach game still has his slash at a orderline unusable .220/.296/.360. There’s just enough time to turn some of those numbers around, but it’s hard to be too optimistic based on what he’s done in 2026.

Riley had a two-homer game against the Rangers on July 19, and since then he’s hit .162/.225/.189 with no homers and one stolen base. Riley hasn’t been good all season and it wouldn’t be surprising if the Braves started to cut his playing time down the stretch, though there’s nothing to suggest at this point that this is more than a routine day off.

Riley hit a pair of solo homers off Nathan Eovaldi, and he also had a two-run single for good measure. The 29-year-old has not had nearly enough games like this in 2026, as made evident in his slash still sitting at .217/.296/.361 over the first 98 games of the campaign. It’s hard to completely write off Riley because there are flashes of what made him one of the best players at the hot corner in baseball, but it’s still hard to have too much optimism at this stage.