NORTH PORT, Fla. — Austin Riley felt good at the plate, felt like himself again, even before hitting his first homer and first double of spring training Sunday. The Atlanta Braves third baseman credits Logan Brumley for helping him get to this point while the two worked through plenty of emotions together.
Brumley is the son of the late Mike Brumley, who was Riley’s personal hitting coach. Riley and Mike Brumley became close friends while working together when Mike was a minor-league instructor in the Braves organization. After Mike left the Braves, he became Riley’s private hitting coach.
Mike died in a multi-vehicle crash on I-20 near Edwards, Miss., on June 15. Mike and Logan Brumley, a former minor leaguer who assisted his dad in hitting instruction in recent years, had just met with Riley the previous week in Baltimore during a Braves series against the Orioles, helping him work out of a slump following an oblique strain in May.
Logan was driving the car with his dad in the passenger seat when the accident occurred.
“I think they drove down to Atlanta and were kind of making their way back to Dallas when it happened,” said Riley, who received a text from Logan a few hours after the accident, telling him his father had died.
Riley, looking away as he recalled that night 3 1/2 months ago, paused and said, “It was a messed-up deal. Terrible. Just terrible.”
Riley knew he could call or text Mike at any hour whenever he was struggling. Brumley, the person who best knew his swing and tendencies and had “clicked” with him years ago, always had sound advice for him about what he was seeing from his prized pupil.
Riley also traveled to Dallas at least once each offseason to work with Mike at the hitting facility where he operated. This was the first winter as a major leaguer that Riley didn’t have Brumley to consult with, to go see. But Riley and Logan Brumley, 35, had stayed in regular contact, and they decided to get together to continue the instruction the Brumleys and Riley had shared.
“It just felt really natural,” Riley said. “The last three or four years, in the offseason, I’d go over to Dallas and see Mike, and Logan would be there helping. And just kind of as we got closer to the present day, he was more involved. It just seemed like he (Logan) knows my swing and has a lot of tendencies that Brum had, in his philosophy and way he coaches. So, I just saw a fit.”
Riley, 27, was coming off the worst of his four full seasons in the majors. It was the first less-than-terrific full season for the two-time All-Star, who was a Silver Slugger winner as the best-hitting third baseman in the NL in 2021 and 2023 and placed sixth in MVP balloting in 2022 and seventh in 2021 and 2023.
After averaging 36 homers and 99 RBIs with an .878 OPS in the previous three seasons, and playing all but four Braves games in those three years through 2023, Riley hit .256 with 19 homers, 46 RBIs and a .783 OPS in 2024 while playing 110 games.
He missed time for the oblique strain in May, then broke out of a slump to surge with a .307 average, 16 homers and a .993 OPS in 53 games after working in Baltimore with the Brumleys. But he had one hit in 15 plate appearances over his last four games before being struck by a fastball that broke his right hand on Aug. 18 at the Los Angeles Angels. Season over.
He’d hoped to return for the final games of the schedule and the playoffs, but when doctors determined the bone had not healed sufficiently, Riley was ruled out. He didn’t feel like his hand was back to full strength until around New Year’s Day. A few weeks later, Logan traveled to Riley’s home in Mississippi to work with him.
“He came to me in Mississippi just because I was still rehabbing and didn’t want to kind of throw that off,” Riley said. “So he came to Mississippi once we kind of built my offseason rehab program and started ramping up to see him. I saw him at the end of January, and I feel good.”
He said working with Logan had a similar feel to working with Mike. And the communication lines are always open with Logan, as they were with Mike.
“We talk all the time,” Riley said. “The (same) tendencies are there. It’s kind of crazy. Like I said, it seemed fitting, and it flowed really well. So I’m gonna run with it and see where it goes.”
Riley didn’t hit in a game of any kind for six months until a Feb. 23 spring-training game. He was 0-for-2 that day but was pleased to foul off a lot of pitches in his first at-bat and move a runner over in his second.
Even though he went 1-for-11 in four spring games before crushing a homer off Yankees right-hander Marcus Stroman on Sunday, Riley felt good and hit balls hard all spring, in workouts and games. The homer Sunday was a no-doubter, a cutter that Stroman left over the plate and Riley hit into a seating deck above the tall left-center wall.
Three pitches later, Matt Olson also homered off Stroman, the second home run for Olson in 13 spring at-bats.
Lopez, Schwellenbach piggyback
Braves starters Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach each pitched in Sunday’s 11-1 rout of the Yankees. López worked the first 1 2/3 scoreless innings and left after throwing 44 pitches (25 strikes) and allowing one hit and two walks with one strikeout. In two spring starts, he’s given up two hits and three walks with three strikeouts in 3 2/3 scoreless innings.
Schwellenbach was superb, pitching three innings and giving up one hit with three strikeouts in 36 pitches, including 24 strikes. The former college shortstop also started a double play by smoothly fielding a comebacker and throwing to second base.
In two spring games, Schwellenbach has given up two hits and no walks with five strikeouts in five scoreless innings.
Their overall pitching has been especially encouraging early for the Braves, who are expected to open the season with Grant Holmes and Ian Anderson, in either order, at the back of the rotation.
Anderson, who missed the past two MLB seasons for Tommy John surgery, struggled some with command (and got squeezed by the umpire) in his Feb. 23 spring debut, when he walked three and gave up a hit and a run in 1 2/3 innings. But he pitched well in his second start Friday against the Marlins, pitching three hitless, groundball-filled scoreless innings with two walks in 28 pitches, including 16 strikes.
Holmes made his second spring appearance in that same game, also working three scoreless and hitless innings with two walks. Holmes had three strikeouts to Anderson’s none in that game, but threw 49 pitches (29 strikes).
For all the concern some have expressed about the Braves’ pitching depth, after they added no starters this winter and lost Max Fried and Charlie Morton to free agency, the fact is, they could be in an enviable position compared to most other teams to start the season, if they can avoid injuries between now and then.
That’s because they would have a rotation topped by Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale, with López and Schwellenbach in the second and third spots in either order, followed by Anderson and Holmes. And by early May, the Braves expect to bring Spencer Strider off the injured list after the 2023 MLB wins and strikeouts leader completes a year-long rehab from internal-brace elbow surgery.
At that point, Holmes seems a likely candidate to move to a long-relief role unless he pitches too well to remove from the rotation.
“The results will speak for themselves,” López said recently through an interpreter. “But I do feel like with the arm talent that we have in the starting rotation, especially looking at Chris and when Spencer comes back, I think it could be a scary starting rotation.”
Profar impressing early
It’s too early to judge, but Jurickson Profar, the Braves’ lone big offseason addition, is making observers believe last season was no fluke for the veteran outfielder.
Profar lined out to the right-field wall in his first at-bat and lined a double that hit a foot below the top of that same towering wall in his second at-bat, his second double in seven at-bats over three games.
The Braves signed the switch-hitting 32-year-old Curaçao native to a three-year, $42 million deal in January, their only multi-year free-agent deal this winter, and plan to use him as their everyday left fielder.
They will be pleased if he can match or come close to his performance last season with San Diego, when Profar hit .280 with a .380 OBP, 24 homers, 85 RBIs, an .839 OPS and 134 OPS+, all career-highs.
Braves officials, after talking at length with Profar and those who worked with him on significant lower-half adjustments in his swing and approach before last season, believed that he would be able to carry that success forward and was worthy of that contract offer. So far, he’s looked like that type of hitter during workouts and his few game appearances.
“There’s a lot of things that make him a dangerous hitter,” López said recently. “His ability to hit from both sides of the plate and his intelligence at the plate. He’s a very good hitter. Whenever I had to face him, I felt like I always went in with a little more caution, a little more prepared; I was preparing to play him. But thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that this year.”
(Photo of Austin Riley: Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images)
