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Muncy made the National League All-Star team in 2018, but he's taken his game to another level in 2021. On August 22, 2022, Muncy signed a one-year contract extension worth $13.5 million for the 2023 season, which also included a $10 million club option for 2024, with incentives. He played in 136 games in 2022, with most of his starts at third base after the team acquired Freddie Freeman to play first. Do you throw to Mookie Betts in a 3-1 count with the winning run at second base? Bukauskas walk him with first base open to bring up Max Muncy, a left-handed slugger, and set up a double play? Or do you walk Betts and pitch around Muncy with Justin Turner, a right-handed hitter, on deck?
Muncy’s blast concluded a late-game six-run outburst from the Dodgers. After scoring 22 runs in a record-setting rout Saturday, they mustered one run through seven innings Sunday. Betts supplied the run with a leadoff homer in the first off right-hander Merrill Kelly.
Dodgers’ Max Muncy hits his 100th career home run: ‘It’s a pretty cool number’
By not allowing an earned run in 4 ⅔ innings, Heaney lowered his earned-run average for the season to 0.64. According to Stats Perform, that’s the lowest ERA in at least 25 innings by any pitcher over his first six starts since Fernando Valenzuela (0.33) in 1981. The solid contact of a record-setting 22-run, 21-hit, eight-home run game still reverberating off the hills in Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers went quietly for the first seven innings Sunday afternoon, managing just one run on five hits. But they rallied for three runs in the eighth inning to tie the game and won it on Muncy’s walk-off home run in the ninth, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks, 7-4, on Sunday afternoon.
When Clevinger pumped a changeup down the middle of the plate, Muncy hit it into the Padres’ bullpen, a three-run home run. Two batters later, Ramirez hit Will Smith – actually his jersey – with a pitch to drive in another run. When Chris Taylor blooped a single into no-man’s land in shallow center field, the tying run scored. Turner (who hit his first career grand slam in Saturday’s scoring orgy) sent a fly ball to the warning track in right-center field where Diamondbacks right fielder Josh Reddick short-armed it as center fielder Daulton Varshho closed in. Diamondbacks reliever Noe Ramirez walked pinch-hitter Zach McKinstry to light the fire for the Dodgers in the eighth.
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The Dodgers otherwise went silent, typical of the team’s feast-or-famine duality this season. He has three career walk-off homers, including the postseason. He then hopped on a flight to Denver with the Dodgers’ contingent — close to 50 people in all — as one of the team’s five All-Stars. Heaney struck out Josh Bell on a 95.4-mph fastball in the first inning. It was the hardest he’s thrown a baseball in 2022, a season twice interrupted by long trips to the injured list to rest his left shoulder.
Justin Turner and DJ Peters also homered for the Dodgers before an announced crowd of 16,343 at Dodger Stadium. Left-hander Victor Gonzalez (2-0) was credited with the win in a game that saw seven relievers limit San Francisco to three hits. After tying or setting new Dodgers records in his MLB debut, James Outman added to an impressive career start by going 2-for-2 with a walk in the win. Maxwell Steven Muncy is an American professional baseball infielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball .
Dodgers: Max Muncy Reflects On Historic Home Run
He corrected an obvious, season-long flaw with one swing Saturday. Too often this year, Muncy has swung underneath a pitch he might have hit for power in the past. He’s hit no fewer than 35 home runs in a full season since 2018; this year he is on pace for 17.
That was enough to support starting pitcher Tyler Anderson (14-3), who allowed three runs in seven innings. Muncy has never been a high-average hitter, but his slow recovery from a torn UCL in his left elbow late last season seemed to sap his power stroke too. His home runs in the second and sixth innings were his 17th and 18th this season, respectively. Since becoming an everyday player with the Dodgers in 2018, Muncy hasn’t finished a full season with fewer than 35 homers. Thompson’s walk snapped the streak of hits but loaded the bases for Joey Gallo, who added onto the Dodgers lead by grounding into a force out.
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Muncy whacked the fourth pitch he saw into the right-field pavilion for a walk-off, three-run home run, sending the Dodgers (56-35) to the All-Star break with a 7-4 win. Heaney was on the hook for a loss until the fifth inning, when Betts singled and Smith’s shoulder absorbed the changeup from Clevinger, setting up the big home run by Muncy. Thanks to a recent hot streak, Muncy’s batting average is up to .170, the highest it’s been since July 5. And yet, the Dodgers are turning the season series with San Diego into a lopsided affair. They are 7-2 against the Padres this season, having outscored them in the nine games. Muncy’s 11th home run of the season put the Dodgers ahead for good en route to an eventual 8-3 victory over the Padres, their MLB-leading seventh straight victory.
Outman became the first Dodgers player to reach base at least three times in each of his first two career games since Bernie Neis in April 1920, and he’s the first to get on safely a minimum of seven times over that same span since Casey Stengel in 1912. He did not sign with Cleveland and attended Baylor University. He played college baseball for the Baylor Bears from 2010 to 2012, and also played collegiate summer baseball for the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League in 2010 and 2011. In his three years at Baylor, Muncy had a .311 batting average with 27 home runs.
With Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, and Max Muncy leading the way, the Dodgers offer one of the most fantasy-friendly environments for counting stats, especially RBI and runs scored. Elsewhere, the Dodgers have more pitcher wins – 458 to be exact, and 18 more than the next closest team – since 2018 despite utilizing a variety of different starters during that span. In short, there’s plenty to like fantasy-wise about the 2023 iteration of the Dodgers, though as with all teams there are a few players to stay away from in fantasy drafts. Muncy made the National League All-Star team in 2018, but he’s taken his game to another level in 2021. He enters Monday night’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals with a .281 average, a major league-best .442 on-base percentage, a 1.005 OPS, 13 homers, 30 RBIs and a major league-leading 43 walks in 51 games. The infielder hit .170 with a .200 on-base percentage, a home run, and a stolen base in a tiny 50-plate appearance sample size for the Dodgers last year.
Miguel Vargas’ placement in the “Busts” section of this column doesn’t really have anything to do with the infielder. The 22-year-old has a promising hit tool and could eventually step into a prominent role for the Dodgers. But, his role might not be that prominent this coming season. Accounting for 32.5% of the pitches Taylor saw in 2022, the 32-year-old had just a .297 xwOBA against the pitch, the 13th-lowest in the sport among batters who saw at least 600 four-seam fastballs last season. As with Lux, he should benefit to a degree from some of Los Angeles’ offseason departures where playing time is concerned next season.
He has worked for daily newspapers as a sportswriter since 1983, in Southern California since 1987 and at the Orange County Register since 1999. Zach Reks pinch-ran and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. After getting to a cautious 3-and-1 count to Betts, the Diamondbacks opted to intentionally walk him and pitch to Muncy. While he still provided solid home run and stolen base production last season, the underlying data just wasn’t there. Plenty has changed for the Los Angeles Dodgers since the team stepped off the field after their National League Division Series defeat to the division-rival San Diego Padres. Trea Turner, Cody Bellinger, Tyler Anderson, and Andrew Heaney all joined other franchises.
At Triple-A, he hit .304 with a .404 on-base percentage, 17 home runs, and 16 stolen bases while walking (13.7% walk rate) nearly as much as he struck out (14.6%). And while he’s played a variety of positions in the minors – including first base, second base, third base and left field – there are plenty of roadblocks on the Dodgers roster where playing time is concerned. Muncy delivered the game-winning hit in the Dodgers’ 4-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Thursday night, a solo home run in the sixth inning of a tie game. It gave Muncy a commanding 5-for-11, three-homer batting line against the Giants this season. And it came against an old friend, Alex Wood, the left-handed pitcher who helped the Dodgers capture a championship last October.
Between Muncy’s two home runs and a three-run shot by Joey Gallo in the second inning, the Dodgers collected all of their runs by virtue of the home run. After sloppy defense allowed the Giants to take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, the Dodgers quickly erased their deficit and never looked back. The club was hopeful that he would return at the beginning of July until he suffered a setback. Now the Dodgers eye Seager returning for the team’s first homestand out of the All-Star break. The three runs were unearned by virtue of the error, but it turned the Dodgers’ 2-0 lead into a 3-2 deficit. Bill Plunkett graduated from Michigan State with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
And he might once again reach double digits in home runs and steals. But if the quality of contact numbers repeat themselves, you might be better off looking elsewhere in drafts for versatile bench options. Taylor logged a .277 xwOBA in 2022, the lowest of his career since 2015 when he had 151 plate appearances in his first season in the Majors with the Mariners. His xwOBAcon also dipped considerably, going from .415 in 2021 to .379 this past season.
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