4. Atlanta Braves Player in July: Austin Riley
Austin Riley finished seventh in MVP voting in 2021, sixth last season, and is on his way to another consideration in 2023.
In July, Riley finished tied for second in total homers with nine on the month. He drove in 21 runs while scoring 20.
He landed among league leaders with a .638 slugging percentage. Riley finished July with 14 extra-base hits and 27 total hits in 94 at-bats. He only walked five times, but why take a free pass when you are slugging like our big third baseman?
He batted .287 and finished the month with a 12-game hit streak. Riley absolutely lit the world on fire during that hot streak. The slugger had eight homers over 12 games to the end of July. He drove in 19 of his 21 runs during this 12-game streak. The man slugged .979 and had a 1.379 OPS.
The fireworks started for Riley with two homers and seven RBI in the already-referenced 13-16 loss to Arizona. That's a lot of damage to do on just three hits! Riley's reign continued as he created a streak within the streak by blasting homers in five straight games between Jul 18-Jul 22. Riley racked up 16 RBI over that five-game stretch. That's 21% of his RBIs in 4.2% of his games played.
Austin Riley had a 1.0 fWAR in July.