The Braves announced that third baseman Austin Riley was placed on the 10-day injured list due to a strained right abdomen. Right-hander Nathan Wiles was also optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett, and the two open roster spots will be filled by infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr. (called up from Gwinnett) and southpaw Joey Wentz (claimed off waivers yesterday from the Twins).
Riley was in the starting lineup for yesterday’s 6-5 Braves win over the Cardinals before his injury forced an early exit from the game in the fourth inning. Manager Brian Snitker told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Chad Bishop that he thought Riley hurt himself while making an infield throw, and the team decided to make a precautionary removal since Riley was still feeling lingering soreness.
More should be known about the third baseman’s condition when Snitker meets with reporters today, though it may not be a great sign that Riley has been so quickly placed on the IL. The fact that his injury was still termed as an abdomen strain rather than an oblique strain could be a plus, and with the All-Star break looming, the Braves may have decided to just give Riley the full 10 days off to perhaps minimize the amount of lost game time.
Missing any action is a relative rarity for Riley, who has played in 681 of a possible 741 games since the start of the 2021 season (including all 93 of Atlanta’s games this season). Riley’s durability took a hit last season, as a fractured hand on August 18 ended up bringing his 2024 campaign to a premature close.
After delivering star-level performance during the 2021-23 seasons, Riley has been more ordinary over the last two years. He has followed up his 116 wRC+ from 2024 with a 113 wRC+ in 408 plate appearances in 2025, with Riley hitting .274/.324/.441 with 14 home runs. This relatively modest production has come despite a .356 BABIP and excellent hard-contact numbers, as Riley’s longtime issues at making contact and taking walks have only worsened this season. His 6.1% walk rate is well below league average, and Riley’s 27.7% strikeout rate puts him in the eighth percentile of all batters. Both metrics would represents new career lows over a full season, as Riley had a 5.4% walk rate and 36.4K% over 297 PA in his 2019 rookie season.
The injury comes at a particularly unfortunate time for Riley, as an .891 OPS over his last 50 PA indicated that he was starting to heat up. His absence is also another blow to an underachieving Braves team that has struggled to a 41-52 record, and even if Riley does end up missing just a minimal amount of time, every game is critical as Atlanta slips further and further back in the playoff race. The Braves certainly have the appearance of being deadline sellers, though recent reports indicate that the club is only looking to move rental players (if anyone) by July 31.
Riley is enough of a lineup fixture that Luke Williams’ six innings of fill-in duty yesterday marked the first time all season that a Braves player besides Riley had lined up at the hot corner. Williams figures to get more of the work at third base while Riley is out, though Alvarez has a good deal of experience at the position in the minors. This will be Alvarez’s first taste of MLB action in 2025, and he hasn’t seen much game time at all this year, as a wrist injury and an oblique strain have limited the infielder to just 13 Triple-A appearances.
Braves can’t catch a break in 2025.
Hopefully this is a situation where he’d not been placed on IL if it wasn’t All-Star week coming up.
Its Nacho Time!
Nacho feels like Jose Peraza prospect hype all over again…Not a ton of upside and most likely overrated by us Braves fans. But I hope he runs with the opportunity.
When Austin comes back chances are Alverez sticks. Nacho becomes part of the keystone for the second half.
The Braves have played Alvarez exclusively at 3B in AAA since he was sent back down after his ugly debut last season— probably because he’s unlikely to be a starter as a ML middle infielder.
Sadly, Braves, it is Nacho season!
Better luck next season… hopefully with a new manager who doesn’t run his boys into the ground. Dudes need days off.
Pedal to the metal for several seasons straight are coming back to bite us this season and last with all these injuries
That’s AA’s most glaring flaw. He went for durability over depth, which works when your starting lineup has few weaknesses. If a guy you locked up fails to deliver, there’s no obvious replacement.
He has pulled a few rabbits out of that, but you can’t rely on that strategy long-term.
And he did oversee a lot of division championships and a WS win, which are excellent accomplishments.
Meh…no loss.
“You guys need to replace”…Not to be argumentative, but who would you replace him with? Like with most GMs, it’s been a mixed bag with A.A. Some very good trades and some unnecessary and expensive ones.
But, he did oversee a World Series title not too long ago and most GMs cannot say that.
Overall I think he’s been successful, but is prone to sexy unnecessary moves and too often thinking he’s the smartest guy in the room.
I wouldn’t replace him unless I had someone specific in mind and there’s a very high probability that he’ll be as good or better than A.A. If you’ll notice, the more long term, successful teams in professional sports don’t often change leadership.
I think AAs good moves more than outweigh the bad. Only thing I would point to is I think he’s overlooked some of the problems with…dare I say…team chemistry (particularly leadership losses). But honestly he seems to care about it more than most but I think he misread the team the last couple of years in that regard. He points to guys like Olson but all the supposed leaders are quiet guys.
What’s Kim Ng up to these days?
Exactly. Well put
Yeah no thanks on Ng.
The worst thing about it is I think he has always been onto something. There is something about Acuna and his fitting on this team. He never seems to have really fit in. If Ozzie Albie’s weren’t on the team I don’t even know if he’d have anyone to talk to. He said he wouldn’t miss Freeman because they weren’t close at all which is fine but it points to a larger issue because Freeman was the leader of the team.
The 2025 Braves remind me of the 2023 Cardinals. Both teams were expected to contend for their division title, and instead both teams experienced a disaster of a season.
Should have claimed CJ Alexander and sent Luke Williams packing.
You think the Braves owner, Terry McGuirk, it’s going to operate any differently under a new GM?
What a battering of a season. S.Bach, Lopez, Sale and Shawver all injured. I’d say the Braves have the most talented IL rotation in baseball. Sigh. MLBTR, give us emoji’s so I don’t have to cry tears in my beer.
Snell, Sasaki, Gonsolin, Stone, Ryan, Grateful, Treinen, Kopech, Philips, and Grove
Dodgers have most talented IL rotation in baseball. They doubled down and also filled most talented IL bullpen.
Maybe Braves fans can gather in mass at The Battery & perform their rendition of the Chop & the pitiful moronic Ahhhing moan to ward of the evil spirits befuddling the Bravos?
Or they can do what they do in Philadelphia, and start throwing batteries at everyone.
And eating garbage.
@Franklin: “In mass”???? Even morons know the phrase you butchered in your effort to troll and insult Braves fans is “en masse.”
Has Riley really had a long term issue with taking walks? It’s not like he walks 20 times a year. He walks nearly 60 times a year. You can’t expect someone to be great at everything. Certain types of hitters hunt pitches early in the count and so they don’t walk as much (some still do). We have to look at the total player.