Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — Thursday is Max Muncy bobblehead night at Dodger Stadium. It’s not the first, but if the funky Muncy doesn’t get going, it could be the last. After all, you typically don’t give bobblehead days to guys hitting .138.
Muncy’s frustration at the plate was perfectly captured in a key at-bat in Wednesday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the 8th inning, with the game on the line, Muncy stood like a statue while Wil Crowe threw a changeup across the heart of the plate for strike three. Muncy said he was looking for a fastball: “I just assumed he didn’t have the guts to throw another changeup.”
Numbers aren’t good
There has been a lot of assuming going on in Muncy’s game lately. True, he is coming off a horrible season-ending injury on the last day of the 2022 campaign. And, to be honest, in the early going Muncy was getting his share of barrels that were winding up in defenders’ gloves. So I do want to cut him some slack here. But to be honest, he hasn’t really had a good month at the plate since July of last year. In August, he hit .189 with an OPS of .758. In September, it was .202 with a .765 OPS, and now in April of this year, he has started with a .136 average and a .586 OPS. Those are three straight months of sub-par baseball.
The most frustrating part of this is the fact that Dodger fans know what Muncy can be when he is rolling. And to think that the Dodgers are still in first place given the fact that Muncy has been a non-entity this year is a testament to the depth of the lineup.
Despite Max’s rocky to the season, Manager Roberts recently expressed confidence Muncy would come around.
“I think he’s starting to come around,” Roberts said last week. “It hasn’t shown itself. I think there’s obviously a lot of talk about hitters not getting rewarded for quality contact; I think it’s real.
“So I think the internal struggle is to keep going when you’re not getting the results. There’s been some good at-bats, solid contact, he’s still taking walks, I still like the quality of at-bat. It’s easy to bet there’s going to be positive results coming.”
A man without a position
Maybe being moved off first base has affected him more than he wants to let on. After all, when AJ Pollock got moved to the White Sox, it became Muncy who was the odd-man out for the Dodgers this year in the field. He’s been bopping around some. He’s played 11 games at second, 12 at third, and 7 at DH. So far this season, he’s only played three innings at first, a position that he ably manned last season. Of course, we know the reason for that; Freddie Freeman is a beast, a guy who wants to be in the lineup every day. Still, even though Muncy is glad to have Freeman as a teammate, his lack of a consistent position this year may have spilled over to his offense.
And there might also be some tentativeness that is in his game because of the injury. A lot of times, a guy gets injured like that and he gets a little less willing to throw himself into the game in the way he once did. I know when he was playing first in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, and a couple of balls were thrown in the baseline, he looked like the last place he wanted to be was first base.
The thing about Muncy’s plate discipline is that it can be a disadvantage. Sure, he can work a walk, but how many hittable pitches is he letting go by to get there? A walk might be seen as a victory for the opponent. You’d much rather have Muncy camped on first than rounding the bases. So perhaps, it’s time to ditch the overly picky nature of Muncy at the plate, and time to just get up there and start hacking. Hanser Alberto, who never saw a pitch he didn’t like, could give Max a few pointers in that regard.
Slumps are complicated things, especially those that start in the middle of the season. Fans just have to stick with their guy and hope that he somehow finds it again. The Dodgers’ strong start and deep lineup buys Muncy a little more time to look for it. But, if not, there’s a guy named Rios who could play some third base for the team. We shall see what Dave Roberts level of patience with his struggling star is, but I for one, am getting a little restless.
It’s Max Muncy bobblehead night. What do you say Max, go out there and earn it.
