Austin Riley named NL Player of the Week

Austin cracked six homers last week while driving in 16 runs.

It was quite the week for Braves slugger Austin Riley, who tied a franchise record with home runs in five straight games while also scoring 16 runners. For his efforts, Riley was named the National League Player of the Week.

Riley, who was experiencing a down 2023 campaign compared to his usual lofty standards, broke out in a big way while hitting the aforementioned six homers, a double, a triple, and two singles during the week of July 17-23. His biggest swing of the week came against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday afternoon as he lifted the Braves to a 7-5 win to snap a four-game losing skid.

The big week lifted Austin’s batting line from .261/.326/.437 (103 wRC+) to .270/.330/.488 (116 wRC+). While his numbers are still down across the board compared to his monstrous 2021 and 2022 campaigns, it was a very welcome sight for the Braves as the final two months of the season approach.

Atlanta is off on Monday before playing a brief two-game series against the Boston Red Sox.