Max Muncy has had a rebound season for the Los Angeles Dodgers and again contributed with two RBI during their 2-1 comeback win over the Colorado Rockies.
Muncy is still only hitting .195, but he has remained a valuable offensive player with a .336 on-base percentage and .483 slugging percentage while closing in on another 30-homer season.
The 32-year-old blasted his 28th home run of the season on Thursday, which tied the game in the seventh inning while the Dodgers were struggling to get any offense going against Ty Blach — who manager Dave Roberts jokingly referred to as Cy Blach.
“I was just trying to get underneath it,” Muncy said. “His sinker was working well and he was locating it. I kept beating it into the ground to the right side, so I was just focused on getting underneath it and trying to make something happen.”
With 28 long balls, Muncy has more home runs than singles (26) this season, which is contributing to his low batting average.
“Obviously, I’ll never complain about the homers,” Muncy said. “But I’m not real proud of that one.”
Despite his lack of singles, Muncy showed the skills that make him valuable to the lineup with the game-tying homer, and that continued when he drew a walk with the bases loaded in the eighth inning.
“I think you have to mentally check yourself, for sure,” Muncy explained of taking a walk in that situation. “You have bases loaded and a chance to win the game, so you have to mentally check yourself and understand what’s going to happen.
“Try to just bear down on what you think the pitcher is going to do and understand there’s a chance to win the game just by doing something small. That’s what it came down to.”
The walk gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead, which held as the final score when Brusdar Graterol recorded the final three outs in the following inning to earn his fifth save of the season.
“There’s so many different ways you can win a game,” Muncy said. “That last inning for us, I think proved it. We had a bunch of guys just taking good at-bats, trying to string some things together and not let the moment get too big.
“I felt like we had a lot of guys that did a great job of that.”
Max Muncy among MLB leaders in homers and walks
Muncy is now ranked eighth in Major League Baseball in home runs, tied with Jorge Soler of the Miami Marlins. He has also drawn 65 walks, which is tied with Texas Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe for ninth overall.
Combining elite power with an ability to draw walks is one of the most prized skill sets in baseball today, but the lack of hitting outside of the long ball is what’s keeping Muncy from taking his production from star to superstar levels.
Still, players can have solid careers with those abilities, which was most notably made popular by Joey Gallo for the Texas Rangers before he was one of the prized trades at the 2021 deadline to the New York Yankees.
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