Braves Austin Riley Back In Action Following Injury Scare

After the Atlanta Braves all-star third baseman looked good during batting practice on Saturday, he's back in the lineup

Harrison Smajovits | Mar 15, 2025

The Braves all-star third baseman is already back in the cages / Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

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Atlanta Braves

Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley is back in the lineup Saturday night following an injury scare. He'll play the hot corner per usual and will bat second behind Jarred Kelenic.

He’s playing in the second of the split-squad games. This one is on home field in North Port.

Riley got work in earlier in the day before being penciled into the lineup.

Per multiple reports, Riley hit in the cages on Saturday. According to MLB.com's Mark Bowman, Riley felt good afterward. Bowman added in a second tweet, to show Riley is good to go, that the Braves two-time All-Star hit a few long balls beyond the centerfield wall.

Austin Riley’s hand is fine. I can’t say the same about any cars that might have been parked beyond those red umbrellas during BP today. He crushed a couple out there pic.twitter.com/zM36GCzN7L
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) March 15, 2025

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Justin Toscano added a key detail in his report on X (formerly Twitter). Following Riley’s injury back in August, he had batting gloves with extra padding made for him by Mizuno.

Austin Riley hit in the cage today. An interesting thing that could help: After the August hand fracture, Mizuno made Riley batting gloves with padding in the palms.
— Justin Toscano (@JustinCToscano) March 15, 2025

Given that Riley took a similar pitch to the hand is looking all right, this very likely helped prevent something more serious.

Riley is day-to-day after he was hit by a pitch on his right hand. Out of precaution, the Braves removed him from the game. Last season, a hit by pitch in August broke his hand and he was out for the remainder of the season.

Riley finished the 2024 season with a .256/.322/.461 slash line along with 19 home runs, 56 RBI and 63 runs in 469 plate appearances over 110 games.

He was starting to look more like his all-star self before his injury, however. In the 57 games he played before his season ended, he had a slash line of .292/.354/.588 with 16 home runs and 46 home runs. Through 162 games, that would translate to 45 home runs and 102 RBIs.

So, whatever slump he was in, it was past him by that point. It should be expected that he will continue his usual production in 2025.

After slow first few games, Riley has had a terrific spring. He’s now batting .308 with an .879 OPS. Since March 2, he’s batting .466.

The Braves beat the Boston Red Sox 7-3 in the first split-squad game of the day on Saturday. The other half of the split-squad day is down in North Port taking on the Minnesota Twins at 6:05 p.m.. AJ Smith-Shawver will take the ball to start the game.