Greater than the glasses: How a lightbulb second made Max Muncy a ‘full hitter’ once more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The glasses may’ve come first. Nevertheless it was a lightbulb second with the swing that made essentially the most profound change.

Simply over a month into the season this yr, veteran Dodgers slugger Max Muncy was in a determined seek for solutions.

By means of the crew’s first 30 video games, his batting common began with a one and his dwelling run complete was caught on zero. His function because the crew’s beginning third baseman was being referred to as into query, fueling early-season hypothesis that the crew would wish to interchange him earlier than the commerce deadline. He was absorbing every day criticism from followers, whereas attempting to not succumb to inside self-flagellation.

The ten-year veteran had gone via chilly begins earlier than. However nothing fairly so irritating as this.

“It’s a privilege to play underneath this stress, and it’s one thing I’ve all the time thrived on, but it surely doesn’t imply it’s been simple,” Muncy mentioned on the final day of April. “It’s been a tough month.”

Beginning that afternoon, nevertheless, Muncy made one large change. Upon studying he had astigmatism in his proper eye, he started carrying glasses on the plate to steadiness out his imaginative and prescient. In his first sport utilizing them, he hit his first dwelling run of the yr.

Then, 9 days later, got here the actual breakthrough.

After spending the whole thing of the winter tinkering along with his swing, and many of the opening month attempting to calibrate his mechanics, every little thing immediately synced up throughout a Could 9 at-bat in Arizona.

Muncy took a fast hack at a excessive fastball from Diamondbacks reliever Kevin Ginkel. He lined a ninth-inning, game-tying single via the appropriate facet of the infield in the Dodgers’ eventual win at Chase Subject. And he realized that, lastly, he’d discovered a sense within the batter’s field he’d been chasing the final a number of years.

A demarcation level had simply been established.

And Muncy’s season has been remodeled ever since.

“The humorous factor about baseball is, typically, it simply takes one swing, one play, one pitch to lock somebody in,” he mentioned. “And ever since that day, I’ve had that feeling at the back of my head. Like, ‘That’s what it’s presupposed to really feel like.’”

In 36 video games earlier than then, Muncy was hitting .188 with just one dwelling run, eight RBIs and 43 strikeouts; his early days with the glasses not even resulting in a direct turnaround.

However since Could 9, he has been the most effective hitters in baseball, and on one of the vital prolific stretches of his whole profession. Over his final 43 video games, Muncy’s batting common is .313, a private finest over any span that lengthy within the majors. He has 12 dwelling runs and a whopping 47 RBIs, a major-league-leading complete in that stretch. Based on Fangraphs’ all-encompassing wRC+ statistic, solely Ronald Acuña Jr., Cal Raleigh, Aaron Decide and Ketel Marte have been extra productive on the plate.

And, most vital, he has re-established himself as a central cog within the Dodgers’ lineup.

“He’s one among our most trusted hitters,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned this previous weekend. “I haven’t all the time been capable of say that.”

Being a greater, extra trusted hitter has been a piece in progress for Muncy ever since the devastating elbow harm he suffered on the finish of 2021.

In Muncy’s prime years with the Dodgers from 2018-2021, he not solely blossomed as the most effective sluggers in baseball by belting 118 dwelling runs over a four-year stretch, however did so whereas posting a .246 batting common and .371 on-base-percentage; stable marks for an influence menace occupying a key function in the course of the Dodgers’ order.

On the core of that all-around strategy was a capability to deal with pitches to all components of the plate — none extra vital than elevated fastballs on the prime of the strike zone.

“Once I’m going nicely, I’m a extremely good high-fastball hitter,” Muncy mentioned earlier this yr.

“When Max is overlaying that pitch,” added hitting coach Aaron Bates, “it permits him to take action many different issues as a hitter.”

Coming off his elbow harm, nevertheless, attending to excessive warmth grew to become a weak spot in Muncy’s sport. For a lot of the subsequent two years, when he nonetheless hit for energy however batted solely a mixed .204, he felt “it was actually laborious to duplicate” his outdated swing. Final yr, he made some incremental progress — when he batted .232 — however was stalled by an indirect pressure that value him the center three months of the season.

Thus, this winter, Muncy set his thoughts to rediscovering his outdated mechanics.

“It actually wasn’t that large of a change,” he mentioned. “It was simply going again to what I did once I first received right here from 2018 to 2021. The identical philosophy I had all these years.”

The work began in January, when Bates and fellow Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc visited Muncy at his dwelling in Texas and crafted a easy focus for the 34-year-old’s offseason work: Purposely follow hitting grounders and line drives on a decrease trajectory, in hopes it will prepare his swing to remain on prime of the ball even on pitches up within the zone.

“You already know he’s naturally going to have loft in his swing to raise the baseball simply,” Bates mentioned. “In order that was a spotlight level for him, ensuring he can hit a tough line drive on a pitch up within the zone, not essentially attempting to raise it greater than he must.”

A sound idea, with some disastrous early outcomes.

Initially of the yr, Muncy’s new swing thought bred different sudden dangerous habits. In his effort to remain on prime of the ball, he was opening up his bottom and letting his entrance shoulder drift too far ahead firstly of his transfer. Because of this, Muncy had hassle squaring the ball and maintaining his bat degree via the strike zone. It led to not solely a scarcity of energy, however a diminished potential to differentiate the sort of pitches being thrown — evidenced by a virtually 32% strikeout fee in April that was seventh-highest amongst MLB hitters.

“That’s the place it’s powerful enjoying the game,” Muncy mentioned. “As a result of you may’t chase outcomes instantly, although you sort of need to. It’s important to chase the method in the long term.”

And whilst exterior stress over his dwindling manufacturing mounted, Muncy mentioned the membership’s coaches and entrance workplace assured him he’d have time to maintain working via it.

“It’s simpler to stay with one thing long-term when that’s the case,” Muncy mentioned. “And for me, that’s been my whole profession. Belief the method, not the consequence.”

Throughout late April, Muncy’s course of included a go to to the identical eye physician who had identified Kiké Hernández with eye astigmatism final yr; a discovery that prompted Hernández to start out carrying glasses, and keyed a sudden offensive turnaround within the second half of the season.

Turned out, Muncy had an analogous downside. Although his imaginative and prescient was 20/12, astigmatism in his proper eye had made him left-eye dominant, a refined however limiting dynamic for a left-handed hitter.

Thus, on the final day of the month, Muncy additionally began carrying prescription-lensed glasses, and christened the brand new eyewear with a house run in his first sport utilizing them.

“It’s not essentially one thing that I would like,” Muncy mentioned. “However simply any probability in any respect it evens out each eyes for me, I’ve been taking it.”

But, in his first week utilizing them, he nonetheless went simply six-for-28 with 9 strikeouts and solely 5 walks. He was nonetheless grinding via his changes to his mechanics. He was nonetheless ready for one swing the place every little thing would really feel synced up.

When Muncy got here to the plate in that Could 9 sport in opposition to the Diamondbacks to face Ginkel, he surveyed the state of affairs, put his swing mechanics out of his head, and tried to give attention to just one goal.

“It was man on second, no outs,” Muncy recalled, “so I used to be attempting to surrender the at-bat, get the ball on the bottom to the appropriate facet of second base, and transfer the runner from second to 3rd.”

All through his profession, that is when Muncy is at his finest. When his thoughts isn’t clouded by the stress to supply, or the particulars of his swing. When he’s “going on the market and simply attempting to play the state of affairs,” he defined. “Like, ‘What’s my at-bat calling for on this second?’”

And on that day in Arizona, with the Dodgers trailing by one run within the ninth, that simplified mindset gave Muncy his second of long-awaited readability.

Ginkel threw a 95 mph fastball up close to Muncy’s chest. The slugger hit it with the sort of fast, degree swing he’d spent all winter making an attempt to craft.

Because the ball rocketed via the appropriate facet of the infield for a game-tying single, Muncy felt a lightbulb go off as he pulled into first base.

Followers cheer because the Dodgers’ Max Muncy rounds the bases after hitting a grand slam on June 22 in opposition to the Washington Nationals.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Occasions)

“I used to be so brief and direct to it, it simply triggered one thing in my head,” Muncy mentioned. “It sort of took all of the stuff I’d been engaged on, even going again to the winter, and was like, ‘OK, that is how I’m attempting to get it to really feel.’”

Muncy hasn’t regarded again ever since.

By having the ability to cowl the highest of the strike zone, he hasn’t needed to cheat on fastballs or hunt on more durable pitches to hit round his knees. When coupled with the glasses which have helped him higher differentiate velocity from spin, he’s been capable of be selective and wait out errors.

“There’s been spells in his profession the place it was the three [true] outcomes and that was it,” Roberts mentioned, lengthy a believer in Muncy’s potential to be a stronger hit collector, somewhat than only a high-powered, high-strikeout slugging presence. “Now, I believe he’s a whole hitter. So that you see the runs batted in, the homers, the standard of at-bats all tick up.”

Throughout this torrid two-month stretch, highlights have are available in bunches for Muncy. He’s had two seven-RBI video games and one other with six. He hit a game-tying dwelling run within the ninth inning in opposition to the New York Mets on June 3. He had two grand slams within the span of three video games final week.

He has gone from the topic of commerce deadline rumors to a fan-voting finalist to make the All-Star Recreation.

He is aware of it’s nonetheless solely been two months; that, in a sport as fickle as baseball, the sensation he has found on the plate can simply as shortly disappear once more.

However for the primary time in years, he’s wholesome, in sync and possessing complete readability — in each imaginative and prescient and thoughts — each time he steps to the dish.

“That is undoubtedly extra of what I used to be envisioning,” Muncy mentioned this weekend, reflecting again on the early-season struggles and laborious swing work over the winter that preceded his two-month tear.

“Now, I’ve the boldness to know I can accomplish just about something I need to do for that state of affairs. Whereas, earlier than, you don’t all the time have that.”