The Los Angeles Dodgers have not been playing at their best over the past two weeks, with a 5-9 record in their past 14 games. The lack of a consistent offense has relegated the team to being devoid of meaningful offensive production across the board.
The current slide has the Dodgers on a four-game losing streak that includes back-to-back losses to the San Francisco Giants, who have been one of the bottom feeders this season. The Dodgers did manage to put together 10 hits in Monday’s loss, which was a welcome change of pace after they only recorded 13 in the entire three-game series against the Atlanta Braves.
Finding positive takeaways to build on, even in losing efforts, is helpful during the process of breaking out of a rut in the batter’s box.
“Yeah, I mean, like we said yesterday, we’re in a funk right now, and it’s a team-wide thing. You have to try to find the positives out of it,” Max Muncy said. “For that situation, we are creating situations where we can have good things happen, we are just not getting a hit here or there.
“So you try to look at the positives, we are creating situations, we are just in a funk of cashing them in.”
Experience is on the Dodgers’ side in this situation, as they have found themselves in this position before. The players aren’t brushing this string of performances off as inconsequential, but also recognize how much of the season is in front of them.
“There’s a lot of conversations happening. We’re not taking this lightly right now, but we also understand it is 162 (games). We’ve gone through stretches like this in the past, and we’ve also gone through good stretches,” Muncy said.
“And so it’s just we’re having a lot of conversations, but it’s also trying not to overreact to something still early in May.”
Max Muncy’s advice for Dodgers
Muncy has found that avoiding negative thoughts, and having confidence in himself and teammates is the key to breaking out of these funks in the past.
“You have to trust who you are, trust in the team, trust in the process. It’s something that we’ve harped on a lot over the years. We’re just going to keep doing that and fully understand we are going to come out of this,” he said.
Part of having trust in the team on offense is not falling into the trap of playing hero ball in every single at-bat, which is something the Dodgers are trying to correct going forward.
“The hard thing about when you’re going through a funk like this as a team is you get in these situations and you want to do something big instead of just keeping it simple,” Muncy said. “I think all of us, up and down, are kind of in that spot right now. We just need to simplify things and not try to do too much when it’s our turn in the box.”
Have you subscribed to the Dodger Blue YouTube channel? Be sure to ring the notification bell to watch player interviews, participate in shows and giveaways, and stay up to date on all Dodgers news and rumors!
