Braves' Austin Riley celebrates All-Star nod by hitting 27th home run (2024)

WASHINGTON — When Braves manager Brian Snitker told Austin Riley on Saturday morning that he’d been added to the NL All-Star team, the third baseman said he was “super-stoked.”

And five hours later, Riley reminded the Nationals and anyone watching why he was an obvious choice to replace Nolan Arenado after the Cardinals third baseman pulled out of the All-Star Game because of a sore back.

Riley followed Matt Olson’s three-run homer in the third inning with a solo homer that was his sixth in eight games and 27th of the season, giving the Braves a four-run lead they wouldn’t relinquish in a 6-3 win, their ninth in a row against Washington and an astonishing 14th straight at Nationals Park.

Olson has four homers and 10 RBIs in his past five games.

The Braves will have six All-Stars on the NL team, which will be managed by Snitker because his team won last year’s NL pennant (and World Series). The choice to add Riley was entirely up to MLB officials but presumably wasn’t a difficult one. There’s no hotter hitter in the league than Riley.

“That guy is the real deal,” Snitker said. “He’s just a really, really good player. Hopefully, he’s in the MVP talk in another couple of months.”

Riley has 10 extra-base hits during a 12-game hitting streak that matches his career high, and he leads the majors with nine home runs in July. He has already matched his July 2021 total for the most homers in his career in any calendar month, and he came close to hitting two more home runs Saturday, getting a double off the wall in the first inning and flying out to the back of the center-field warning track in the fifth.

“What he’s been able to do, and what he’s meant to this team, for him to get recognized, it shows that he’s one of the best third basem*n in baseball,” said Max Fried, who picked up his 10th win Sunday, allowing seven hits and three runs in seven innings before a 1-hour, 49-minute rain delay prior to the bottom of the eighth.

Fried, another of the Braves’ first-time All-Stars, said he was “ecstatic” that Riley had been added to the team. After finishing seventh in the NL MVP balloting and winning a Silver Slugger Award for his breakthrough performance in 2021, Riley, a 25-year-old from Southaven, Miss., added an even bigger honor.

“It’s awesome. It’s crazy,” said Riley, the fifth first-time All-Star among the six Braves players headed to Los Angeles for Tuesday’s game, with three-time All-Star Ronald Acuña Jr. the only repeat selection among the group. “It’s something that, from a personal standpoint, you’ve worked for, and to be named an All-Star is pretty special.”

Along with Fried, Riley and Acuña, the Braves’ All-Stars are shortstop Dansby Swanson, catcher Travis d’Arnaud and William Contreras, a catcher voted to the team as a designated hitter. The group will fly to Los Angeles together Sunday night, along with Snitker and Braves coaches, after the series finale against the Nationals.

“That’s pretty sweet,” Riley said. “Probably be some nerves and stuff, but to have all those guys there, that’ll be fun to enjoy that with them.”

As soon as Snitker found out Riley was on the team, he texted his third baseman, then called.

“We had a nice conversation,” Snitker said. “If anybody’s deserving to be an All-Star, it’s him. It’s good to see the left side of that infield is going to be (well) represented with the Braves.”

Riley said, “I was super-stoked. Got enough time that my wife and my mom and dad are going to be able to make the trip out there, so that’s awesome, to be able to spend it with them.”

He is third in the majors with 27 homers, behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge (33) and Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber (29). Riley has hit .284 with a .923 OPS, which was second best in the NL before the Saturday late games, behind the Cardinals’ Paul Goldschmidt (1.004) and just ahead of the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman (.915).

Riley plays a position that has two established superstars, perennial Gold Glover Arenado and the Padres’ Manny Machado, who both were voted by fans and players to the initial All-Star roster. But it worked out as the Braves hoped it would.

“I felt like I did my part,” Riley said. “You can only control what you can control. I’m very fortunate to be going.”

Riley is just the second player in franchise history to have at least 100 hits and 25 homers before the All-Star break, joining the legendary Hank Aaron, who did it in a shorter season in 1957, when there were 79 games before the All-Star break and Aaron had 117 hits and 27 homers. The Braves have played 93 games this season. Riley has started 90 and played in 91.

Aaron was 23 in 1957, when he hit .322, led the majors in homers (44) and RBIs (132) and won his only MVP award (he had six other top-three finishes.)

Acuña practices for Home Run Derby

Acuña didn’t play Saturday but did get in some practice rounds of rapid-fire batting practice in preparation for Monday’s Home Run Derby at Dodger Stadium. Snitker said it was “just a day off” for the right fielder.

He hit on the field at Nationals Park a few hours before the game, without the cage that’s set up for normal batting practice. Braves batting-practice pitcher Tomás Pérez threw at a quicker clip than usual so Acuña could get used to the pace necessary to be competitive in the Home Run Derby.

Among the onlookers was Nationals star Juan Soto, a friend of Acuña’s since they played together in an All-Star tour of Japan after the 2018 season. That was the year Acuña was a runaway choice as NL Rookie of the Year over Soto, with Acuña getting 27 of 30 first-place votes and Soto getting two.

Acuña has a tough draw in the eight-man Home Run Derby, facing two-time defending champion Pete Alonso in the first round.

Acuña missed the first 18 games of the season while completing rehab from knee surgery for a torn ACL, an injury that happened two days before the All-Star break in 2021 and ended his season. He had to miss the All-Star Game after being voted a starter, but he will be in the starting lineup Tuesday after being the overall NL leader in fan votes this year.

When Acuña hit .316 with eight doubles, six homers, 11 stolen bases and a .950 OPS in his first 31 games off the injured list this season, it looked like the hugely talented 24-year-old might be the rare player who shows almost no rust coming off a long surgery rehab. He has since cooled considerably, hitting .220 with two doubles, two homers, nine stolen bases and a .608 OPS in his past 27 games. He has one homer, four RBIs and a .660 OPS in his past 18 games.

Fried at the break

Even if Fried’s past two starts weren’t as dominant as he’d been most of the first half, he goes to the All-Star break with a 10-3 record and a 2.64 ERA, which ranks sixth among NL starters. He and teammate Kyle Wright (11-4) are among five NL pitchers with at least 10 wins.

The left-hander went 1-1 while allowing 12 hits and five runs with five walks and nine strikeouts in 12 innings in his past two starts, after going 5-0 with a 1.81 ERA and .540 opponents’ OPS in the previous nine starts, all Braves wins.

After issuing a career-high five walks in five innings during a loss Monday against the Mets, Fried yielded no walks Saturday.

“I would’ve liked to have kept a couple more runs off the board, but the guys did a great job today of grinding at-bats and getting a good lead,” Fried said. “I just had to try to hold them. … I just wanted to go out there and challenge the hitters. If you walk a guy, you have zero chance of getting him out.”

No 3-game skids

The Braves will go to the All-Star break as the only MLB team not to have had at least a three-game losing streak this season. It’s the longest any team has gone without losing three in a row since the 2009 Dodgers, who didn’t lose three straight until games 98-100.

The Braves have lost consecutive games just once since the beginning of June, in their June 17-18 losses to the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Their 33-10 record going back to June 1 is the best in the majors, and the Braves’ 56 wins entering Sunday’s series finale at Nationals Park are their most before an All-Star break since the 2003 team won a franchise-record 61.

Big day for Harris

Rookie Michael Harris II reached base three times — on a double, a single and a walk — in four plate appearances and had a career-high three stolen bases, raising his total to 10 steals in his first 47 games without being caught.

The youngest player in the majors, Harris, 21, leads NL rookies in steals, and no other major-league rookie has more than five without being caught. It was his second multiple-stolen-base game this month after he had two against the Cardinals on July 5.

“It’s always been a part of my game,” said Harris, who had 27 steals in 31 attempts last season at High-A Rome. “Like I say all the time, I just try to do everything I can — offensively, on the bases, defensively. Today was one of those days on the basepaths that I had to really step up.”

Batting mostly ninth at the outset of his MLB career, Harris has hit .284 with nine doubles, two triples, eight home runs, 26 RBIs, 30 runs and an .823 OPS. He had a ninth-inning double Saturday on a ball that caromed off pitcher Andres Machado’s backside and rolled to shallow center field.

“I tell you what was impressive to me,” Snitker said of the double, “was just how quick and the turn that he had at first. And to have the wherewithal to get to second base right there. I mean, he does things that I keep thinking, I didn’t realize he was that fast. You underestimate his speed, like in the outfield because of his jumps and everything. But that was not an easy play. Running hard to first because the ball’s in the infield, and to make that turn like that was pretty impressive.”

(Top photo of Austin Riley: Nick Wass / Associated Press)