Dodgers' Max Muncy continues redemption arc on his season with massive swings in win

New York Times

3 days ago

LOS ANGELES – This is Max Muncy at his best, wielding his silver bat and singular control of the strike zone while showing the ability to blast the ball out of the ballpark. With his work complete, he will often toss the bat away in near disgust. With two more blasts on Tuesday, he has now completed this home run trot 199 times in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform. His season has course-corrected after a miserable start, be it through a set of new glasses or fixing poor habits that had taken over his swing this winter.
Advertisement
Muncy is mashing again. That is a massive development for the Dodgers and Muncy alike. The much-maligned third baseman has slugged five home runs over his last four games, with two on Tuesday that included a game-tying blast in the ninth inning off of the New York Mets' Huascar Brazobán in the team's eventual 6-5 walk-off extra-inning win.
This, after Muncy at his worst. His defense has been a sore spot and continued to trend in the wrong direction even as his bat has gotten going. His nine errors trail only San Diego's Manny Machado. They threatened to ruin Muncy's progress on Tuesday, as Starling Marte's chopper ducked between the 34-year-old Muncy's legs to extend the fifth inning against Clayton Kershaw. Muncy wanted to be wary of Marte's propensity to bunt. When reading the hop, he came up too early and missed it. 'Just a stupid mistake,' Muncy said. The Mets capitalized to tie the game and eventually take the lead after Muncy botched a would-be double play ball.
Such is the duality of Muncy, who has emerged as one of the most compelling characters in this Dodgers chapter. The veteran endured the longest homer-less streak of his career to start this season and struggled to find his level. He spent an offseason searching for a more consistent swing only to fall into a massive funk. Now, he's looking like himself, swinging games and redeeming even his low moments in the process.
'Honestly, I think he's had plenty of practice weathering some struggles offensively,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. 'You know, it's certainly not easy to go on a 1-for-20, 1-for-25 and strike out and things like that and to still have to go out there and play defense and then find a way to get hot and to kind of reset, get back on track. But you look at his tenure with us, that's kind of how it's been.'
MAX MUNCY! pic.twitter.com/l7UPbARTZ9
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 4, 2025
The Dodgers committed to Muncy at third base again this winter because of the cost. At his level of production, Muncy's recent extension was a relative bargain. It was also because they knew they could bank on his bat, which is finally coming around. He developed bad habits this winter trying to be a more consistent hitter. He tried out glasses after being diagnosed with astigmatism in his right eye. Whether it was the swing or the glasses, or both, something has clicked.
Advertisement
Through his first 28 games, he had a .531 OPS and hadn't hit a single home run. In 29 games since, he has hit .277 with nine home runs and a 1.015 OPS. His wRC+ for the season is 121, 21 percent above league average.
'I think Max has been doing this for about a month now,' said Freddie Freeman, who walked things off in the 10th inning. 'He's been looking like Max again.'
'I was hitting the ball hard, I just wasn't getting good results out of it,' Muncy said of his early-season struggles. 'It's one of those things where if I wasn't hitting the ball hard that'd be a red flag. Just had a little bit of bad luck early. Now I'm getting things to go the right way which is nice.'
Finding that stride required work with the Dodgers' hitting coaches on correcting some of the bad habits he'd established in his swing, which had included trying to get on top of the baseball to hit more line drives after a career centered on a power-driven approach. That mental cue threw his swing off-kilter. He had issues with his bat path, cutting off his swing too early and causing him to drive deep, long flies well into foul territory rather than fair and in the outfield seats. Correcting that also got him right on time to hit fastballs well, as he did on Tuesday.
When Mets starter Tylor Megill tried to challenge Muncy with an elevated fastball in the first inning, the Dodgers slugger was ready for it. He turned on it and pulled it into the seats for a two-run shot to expand his team's early lead.
It would be the last runs the Dodgers would put up until Muncy strode to the plate again in the ninth inning. Muncy's fifth-inning error had put the Mets up and kept them up as Brazobán entered for the save opportunity. Down to two strikes, Muncy jumped all over an elevated fastball and sent it about eight rows deep to tie it, tossing his bat with disgust before rounding the bases.
Advertisement
'Making mistakes really sucks,' Muncy said. 'But when you do it with a guy like Kershaw on the mound, it cuts deep a little bit more. To be able to atone for that a little bit felt really good for me.'
Muncy knows these games lack the margin the Dodgers usually enjoy. They're in the midst of a stretch of 29 games in a row against teams with real postseason aspirations. They have 15 pitchers on the injured list. Their pitching staff is so starved for fresh arms that the likes of José Ureña, Ryan Loutos and Will Klein have been brought into the organization to reprise some of the role that names like Dinelson Lamet, Yohan Ramírez and Zach Logue filled a year ago. Dropping games they can win in this stretch stings a little extra. Especially when using some of the top arms you have left in a losing effort, as they would have in asking Ben Casparius to cover eight outs and struggling closer Tanner Scott to pitch for the second time in as many nights (Scott, for his part, showcased better life on his stuff in a scoreless 10th inning after allowing two runs on Monday).
That made Muncy's redemption – not just Tuesday, but for the season – all the more sweet.
'He's had to go through some adversities and it certainly hasn't been linear for him, whether it be the defense or the droughts offensively and kind of hearing noise from the outside,' Roberts said. 'But he's built a nice hard shell in the sense of, just really trying to put his head down and keep the blinders on and trying to focus on whatever situation is at hand at the moment. For him to respond that way and to block out the error that he made in that fifth inning was big. To play in this market and on this ballclub, you have to be able to weather some of those storms and keep going.'
(Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)