Austin Riley has quietly been one of the Braves' most productive hitters in 2025. His ability to consistently hit the baseball hard is on full display this season, and the Braves offense is finally beginning to follow suit.
It's a welcome sight considering how Riley's 2024 season ended. The often durable third baseman had to watch the postseason from the sidelines after an errant fastball in Anaheim fractured his wrist, thus ending his season. Once Riley established himself as an All-Star level player in 2021 he's been the model of consistency for the Braves. He earned three straight top-seven finishes in NL MVP voting from 2021-2023.
In that process he signed the biggest contract in Atlanta Braves history. About the only thing that has ever slowed Riley down has been ill-timed injuries. In this article we'll take a look at the relatively short list of ailments that have plagued Riley in his career thus far.
This baseball was absolutely crushed 😳
— MLB (@MLB) April 15, 2025
Austin Riley's second homer of the game goes 444 feet! pic.twitter.com/CECvPs2AFA
Rookie season knee trouble
The first time Riley landed on the injured list came in August of 2019, his rookie season. The injury was a partial tear of the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee. Riley picked up the injury during a workout, and ultimately returned on September 6, 2019.
Riley would go on to close out his rookie season ice-cold after his electric debut. The next season he returned healthy and hoping to win the starting third base job in 2020.
Mr. Iron-Man until the nightmare 2024 season
As mentioned previously, from the 2021-2023 seasons Riley was Mr. consistent for Atlanta. Not only with his play on the field, but his ability to post everyday. In each of those seasons Riley appeared in at least 159 games. His lowest OPS in those three seasons was .861.
He was part of the Braves core that was known for being penciled in 99% of time by manager Brian Snitker. Things seemed to be following course in 2024 until the Braves ran into a historically unlucky injury-plagued season.
Riley's first hiccup came in May when he dealt with an oblique injury that forced him out of a game against the New York Mets. What entailed was the whole fiasco where Riley missed a good bit of time, but was never placed on the injured list.
In total Riley missed 15 calendar days before he returned to the lineup in late May. From there Riley was battling to make up for his slow start. Eventually he did go on one of his patented Austin Riley summer heaters, and his season numbers were beginning to creep up back toward his career norms.
Unfortunately, Braves fans never got the chance to see the conclusion of Riley's 2024 due to the aforementioned wrist fracture that occurred in August. Thankfully, Riley has been rock solid thus far in 2025, appearing in every game the Braves have played. He's currently slashing .296/.337/.520 and looks to be reminding baseball fans just how talented he is. Hopefully the rest of his 2025 campaign is more of the same and we get a lot more Austin Riley moonshots to celebrate.