Braves spring training: Bryse Wilson hit hard, Austin Riley impressive at third

Here we give some quick takeaways from the Atlanta Braves second spring training game, which they lost to the Detroit Tigers 5-1 on Sunday afternoon.

Bryse Wilson got the start for the Atlanta Braves on Sunday against the Detroit Tigers and gave up 2 earned runs on 4 hits.

The young righty didn’t walk anyone but also didn’t strikeout anyone as it looked like he was just working on his fastball.

He continually pounded the strike zone in the first inning with fastballs in the low 90s and the Tigers’ hitters just teed off on him knowing what was coming for the most part.

You really can’t put too much stock in this outing from Bryse as he was obviously just working on some things in the first inning.

I saw a couple of breaking pitches in a  much cleaner second inning, but he still just continued to pound the zone.

Certainly, Bryse would have loved to see better results on Sunday, but I’m not going to read too much into this one. I still think he’s third in line for that fifth spot behind Felix Hernandez and Kyle Wright, so he has his work cut out for him.

Austin Riley’s defense

Maybe the biggest takeaway from this game for me was the defense for Austin Riley at third base. he was really tested today and made several great plays.

The first one was a slow hopper in front of the shortstop that he came across to get, bobbled for a second, but still was able to recover and throw the runner out.

Later in the game, he made a great play as he back-handed a ball down the third-base line on a short hop and threw a laser across the diamond to get the runner out.

It’s just one game, but if you had any concerns about Riley’s defense moving back to third, he likely erased some of those concerns today.

Other notes: 

* Kyle Muller made his spring training debut and gave us quite the show. The big lefty quickly loaded the bases on a hit and two hit-batters, but then he struck out the next two batters flashing his big fastball and curveball. But then he walked the next batter to force in a run and was pulled without finishing the inning. You could tell he was a little amped up and overthrowing. Hopefully we get a longer look at him later this Spring.

* Drew Waters is bigger than I thought. I’ve seen Water in person a couple of times, but for whatever reason, I’ve also thought he was a small dude. But he’s 6-foot-2 and looks like he’s starting to grow into that frame.

The Atlanta Braves will go on the road for the first time this Spring to play the Toronto Blue Jays Monday afternoon. Don’t expect a lot of starters to make the trip for that one.