It’s the first inning of the second game against the Diamondbacks as I open my laptop to pull this article together, and Austin Riley has just laced a single up the middle so hard it appeared to knock Arizona pitcher Corbin Martin’s glove right off his hand. At 115.9 MPH off the bat, the ball was the hardest-hit of Riley’s career—and yet, it felt like just another routine at-bat for the Braves third baseman, who was hotter at the plate during the month of July than field level for a summer afternoon game in Atlanta.
In the time that has passed since I originally started thinking about writing this piece, we’ve gone through the following phases:
- Why are we not talking more about Austin Riley?