Max Muncy, Michael Conforto come alive on offense as Dodgers defeat Guardians
- Share via
CLEVELAND — For a few weeks now, the Dodgers have been in the “treading water” portion of their season, trying to work through injuries in their pitching staff and inconsistencies in the lineup to remain atop the National League West standings.
On Tuesday, in a 9-5 win over the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, two of their coldest hitters finally gave them some comfortable space to breathe.
In a game that was close until the final few innings, Michael Conforto and Max Muncy both showed long-awaited signs of life at the plate, each reaching base three times and each hitting late home runs to help the Dodgers pull away on a cool night in Cleveland.
“It’s big,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It adds the length [to the lineup] that we expected coming into this season.”
For much of this year, that length had been missing, the Dodgers forced to navigate around subpar production from both veteran sluggers — both at the plate and in the field.
Entering the night, Muncy had just three home runs and a .653 OPS. Conforto had only two long balls and a .562 OPS. Their defensive play had been glaring weaknesses, as well, with Muncy’s eight errors ranking second among MLB third basemen and Conforto’s negative-three mark in defensive runs saved 12th out of 15 qualified MLB left fielders.
The Dodgers need closer Tanner Scott to quickly make some adjustments because his recent streak of blown saves are making their pitching woes worse.
It had made the pair the weakest links in the Dodgers’ star-studded lineup. And it had invited widespread scrutiny from the fan base, raising speculation about their long-term roles with the team.
“Sometimes this game can be brutal,” Conforto said. “There’s a lot of failure.”
Late on Tuesday night, however, both finally enjoyed much-needed success.
After the Dodgers built an early 4-0 lead — they mounted a two-run second-inning rally and got a two-run homer from Shohei Ohtani in the fourth; his MLB leading 20th of the season and third-straight game going deep — the Guardians had gotten back within 4-3 by the time Conforto stepped to the plate in the sixth.
For the last several weeks, Conforto had slowly started turning his season around, hitting the ball harder and posting incrementally better results (not that things could have gotten much worse after he batted .134 in his first 36 games this season). This week, Roberts said the club’s hitting coaches were optimistic about Conforto’s recent cage work, as well, ever convinced the left-handed slugger was close to a more profound breakthrough at the plate.
It all came together in a full-count against Guardians reliever Hunter Gaddis, Conforto barreling up an inside fastball for a 406-foot drive to center that marked his first home run since April 5.
“To hit a ball hard and see it leave the park,” Conforto said, “it’s kind of everything that we’ve been working on.”
Conforto also singled in the Dodgers’ two-run second-inning rally, and later drew a walk in the eighth, raising his OPS to .833 over his last 14 games.
When he returned to the dugout after his no-doubt blast, both Teoscar Hernández and Kiké Hernández were waiting at the top step, showering him with fistfuls of sunflower seeds.
“I heard Kiké as soon as I hit the ball, screaming,” Conforto said with a laugh. “He’s been awesome and the rest of the guys have been awesome. They’ve kept it fun while it’s been tough.”
Muncy, too, continued his own recent turnaround at the plate.
In the second inning, the third baseman drew a walk, got a good jump against Guardians starter Tanner Bibee to steal second without a throw, then got a good read on Andy Pages’ flare single to right to score the night’s opening run. He also added an infield single in the eighth.
In the ninth, though, Muncy finally found an important missing piece in his offensive profile, hitting his first home run in almost two weeks on a three-run shot that had him bat-flipping out of the box.
“My swings have been feeling really good lately, and just haven’t gotten the power results necessarily that I wanted,” Muncy said. “I’ve been getting hits. I’m hitting the ball hard. Just haven’t been getting it to go where I wanted to go. So that swing felt really good.”
Mistakes were still in abundance for the Dodgers (34-21).
The team’s second-inning rally was cut short after Dalton Rushing, an at-bat after hitting an RBI single, failed to avoid a tag near second base on what became a double-play grounder from Tommy Edman (another slumping hitter in the bottom half of the lineup lately).
This year, in a significant shift to the way they travel, the Dodgers are using two planes on a full-time basis for their regular-season road trips.
In the fifth, Teoscar Hernández was slow getting out of the box on a line drive off the wall in right-center, and was thrown out by a mile after making an ill-advised decision to still try for a double.
And in between that, starting pitcher Dustin May hit his lone speed bump in a five-inning, three-run, nine-strikeout start: Offering up a down-the-middle sinker with two aboard in the bottom of the fourth that Daniel Schneemann crushed for a three-run homer.
“The swing-and-miss was there, just one bad pitch,” said May, who has three consecutive starts with at least eight strikeouts but has also given up home runs in each of his last five outings. “The long ball has kind of got me the last however many starts. Gotta try and figure out a way to limit that going forward.”
Nonetheless, the Dodgers still held off the Guardians (29-25) to clinch a series victory. Jack Dreyer and Ben Casparius provided three key innings of relief. Conforto and Muncy’s contributions made the two runs Luis García yielded in the ninth irrelevant.
And a club that’s simply been trying to keep its head above water lately was able to avoid any further sinking, ensuring they go no worse than .500 on this tricky Eastern road trip.
“It’s definitely been better,” Muncy said. “Offensive side has been great. Pitching has been great … And the bullpen came in and did their job. Not putting too much stress on those guys, that’s the key for us on offense, is to kind of give them a little bit of a lead to work with. And we were able to accomplish that.”
For the first time in a long time, thanks to contributions from Muncy and Conforto.
Are you a true-blue fan?
Get our Dodgers Dugout newsletter for insights, news and much more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
