Dodgers' Max Muncy took step back to move past struggles

By Rowan Kavner
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Sometimes, it takes a step back to see a path forward.

An already encouraging road trip in an otherwise exasperating season for Max Muncy started to get interesting in the second inning Aug. 1 in San Francisco. A changeup from ground-ball extraordinaire Logan Webb caught too much of the plate. Before Muncy lifted his front leg in the air to prepare for the pitch, he stepped his back foot slightly toward the back of the box. Then he demolished a 399-foot home run — his first of four over the next seven games.

In a year full of adjustments, Muncy might have found the one to steer his season back on track.  

"It's extremely weird," the Dodgers infielder said of his new stepback move. "But at the same time, it's one of those things where if I'm doing something that's uncomfortable, it'll allow what's natural to come out. So far, that's kind of been what's happening."

Three months ago, Muncy was at a loss. 

Mechanically, he felt identical to last season, yet the results were staggeringly different. The two-time All-Star returned from a UCL injury in his left elbow in time for Opening Day, only to begin the year 1-for-15. As the weeks passed, the struggles continued.

"The only excuse I have for that is I just haven't been very good," Muncy said in May. "It's nothing mechanically. It's nothing health-wise. It's not really anything the pitchers are doing. Obviously, they're making really good pitches — I'm not going to take that away from those guys; pitchers have been kind of dominating me — but it's just one of those things where I haven't been finding the barrel."

A 10-for-26 start to August lifted his batting average to .180, still the lowest mark among qualified major-league hitters and a lasting blemish of an uncharacteristic first half. This was the same player who recorded back-to-back 35-homer seasons in 2018 and 2019, then mashed a career-high 36 home runs last year. He finished each of those years with an OPS+ better than 130. This year, he's still working to reach league average.  

At a low point in late May, mired in a 1-for-19 spell as his OPS dipped below .600, Muncy was placed on the injured list due to left elbow inflammation. The reset was both physical and mental.

"Obviously, I wasn't hitting the best, so I was hitting a lot to try to fix that," Muncy said. "You're hitting two, three, four hours a day with an elbow that needs a little rest. It's not really ideal."

He took nine days off, then went on a brief rehab stint to Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he lifted a walk-off homer on June 7.

He later acknowledged the helpfulness of the reprieve. Upon his June 9 return, manager Dave Roberts told him to think of the rest of the season as a clean slate. 

"This is a new season for him," Roberts said. "That's something that I really want him to take to heart."

For a day, it looked like he did.

Muncy's first game back with the Dodgers presented a peculiar opportunity. Trea Turner got down 1-2 in the count with two outs and first base open in the sixth inning June 9 at Guaranteed Rate Field. He was then issued a free pass by White Sox manager Tony La Russa. Muncy followed with a three-run blast on a season-high five-RBI day.

"I wanted to make them pay," Muncy said, looking to have turned a corner. His edge was back. He appeared refreshed. But the elation was short-lived. A 2-for-19 stretch followed.

The Dodgers maintained their belief in the scuffling slugger. After all, he had carried previous iterations of Dodger lineups. Muncy's uncanny mix of patience and power had been especially beneficial in the postseason, where he holds a career .881 OPS. His absence from last year's playoff roster after an Oct. 3 collision at first base with Milwaukee's Jace Peterson played a notable role in the Dodgers' NLCS exit.  

So Roberts kept trotting Muncy out this year, believing things would turn.

"It means a lot to me," Muncy said of the unyielding support. "But it's just part of who I am to show up every day and get my work in and not complain about things and go out there to do what I can and be positive for the guys, despite what my numbers have been."

Muncy's struggles haven't fundamentally changed his identity as a hitter. He maintains one of the keenest eyes in baseball, boasting the lowest chase rate and second-highest walk rate among qualified NL batters. But he hasn't done damage on the pitches he typically clobbers. His expected batting average is the worst of his Dodgers career. He's hitting .176 and slugging .333 on middle-middle pitches; those numbers were .329 and .927, respectively, last season.

It was difficult for him to pinpoint exactly what was going on, though he would, eventually, admit to the lingering effects of last year's elbow injury.

"There's definitely been way too many pitches over the heart of the plate that I haven't connected on this year," Muncy said. "A lot of that is mechanical. A lot of that's because of my elbow. A lot of that's because of a lot of things."

While still hitting the ball relatively hard — his hard-hit percentage is down from last year but in line that of with his All-Star 2019 season — he was getting underneath pitches at an alarming rate.

Muncy is averaging the 13th-highest launch angle among qualified batters this year, nearly six degrees greater than last season. It's the seventh-biggest year-to-year change in launch angle in the major leagues and three degrees more than he averaged in any previous season. As a result, he has also had the highest fly ball and pop-up percentages of his career.

So he worked to get his bat path and body in better position. The most obvious tweak to his setup has been the stepback move with his back foot before the pitch arrives.

"The problem I've been having all year, because of my elbow, I was just working so uphill because that's what felt comfortable. It's what felt like it was the easy thing to do," Muncy said. "The stepback is allowing me to immediately get my shoulders downhill. That allows my elbow to get to the proper slot."

The move was foreign to Muncy but familiar to teammate Chris Taylor, who has utilized a form of it since 2017.

"Initially, it was a drill I did when I started doing my leg kick," Taylor said. "It kept me inside my back foot. Now, it's more just a rhythm and timing thing than anything."

It is helping Muncy find both.

He began August on a season-high seven-game hitting streak, shattering his previous long of three. He hadn't recorded more than three home runs in any month this season until August, when he mashed four homers and three doubles in his first seven games.

"He worked really hard to kind of weather the mindset, the mental grind of where he started the season and the injury part of it, and so I think we're on the other side of it," Roberts said. "Just the consistent [at-bat] quality we're seeing — he's getting hits, he's driving runs in — you can just see the confidence starting to ooze from him."

Every powerful performance lends more credence to Muncy's revival. He's catching up to fastballs in a way he hadn't all year, starting this month 5-for-12 (.417) with two homers and two doubles against the pitch after batting .169 against fastballs the first four months of the year. Two of his six hits this season on pitches 95 mph or greater have come in the past two weeks.

"It's a little bit of a relief for me. All the work I'm putting in is finally paying off a little bit," Muncy said before qualifying the stretch: "I've got to keep at it. I can't think that I'm out of it yet."

If he is, it's a massive boost for a 77-33 Dodgers team already cruising toward an early clinch. Muncy's resurgence has gone hand-in-hand with Cody Bellinger's. The struggling lefties are beginning to find their way.

For the former, a leap forward required a step back.

"Scary enough, I think there's still a lot more in there," Muncy said. "For the whole team."

Rowan Kavner covers the Dodgers and NL West for FOX Sports. A proud LSU alumnus, he credits his time as a sportswriter and editor at The Daily Reveille for preparing him for a career covering the NFL, NBA and MLB. Prior to joining FOX, he worked as the Dodgers’ editor of digital and print publications. When not at a stadium or watching sports, Rowan enjoys playing with his dog, hiking, running, golfing and reminiscing about the Mavs’ 2011 championship run. You can find him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.