Max Muncy, Tanner Scott get some redemption in Dodgers’ win over Mets
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It was a night of redemption at Dodger Stadium.
For the struggling home team, its recently beleaguered closer and its enigmatic third baseman most of all.
In a 6-5 win against the New York Mets on Tuesday, Max Muncy atoned for a costly fifth-inning error with a two-home run performance, including a game-tying blast in the bottom of the ninth.
Left-hander Tanner Scott snapped out of his recent funk, throwing a scoreless 10th inning a night after taking a loss in the same situation.
And after two consecutive frustrating defeats, the Dodgers finally bounced back on Freddie Freeman’s walk-off double in the bottom of the 10th — earning a win that kept them in sole possession of first place in the National League West, and chased a few demons for both Scott and Muncy in the process.
“We needed every bit of it,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s good to see the resilience from a lot of our guys.”
No one has needed more resilience this season than Muncy, who suffered through a woeful opening month at the plate and in the field and was beginning to feel the ire of a ruthlessly demanding fan base.
Over his first 35 games this season, the 10th-year slugger was not only batting .177 but had just one home run in his opening 135 plate appearances. And even though his bat has come around lately — thanks to refined swing mechanics and the help of new eyeglasses — his defensive play at third has remained a liability.
“He’s had to go through some adversities, and it certainly hasn’t been linear for him, whether it be the defense or the droughts offensively and kind of hearing noise from the outside,” Roberts said. “But he’s built a nice hard shell in the sense of, just really trying to put his head down and keep the blinders on and trying to focus on whatever situation is at hand at the moment.”
In a roller-coaster of a game Tuesday, that dynamic was on display a couple of times.
In the first inning, Muncy punctuated a four-run ambush of Mets starter Tylor Megill with a two-run home run deep to right field, pushing the Dodgers to an early 4-1 lead.
But then in the fifth, he committed a costly error at third base, letting a potential inning-ending double-play grounder get between his legs to fuel a two-run rally that gave the Mets a 5-4 lead.
After the threat began on a four-pitch walk to Francisco Lindor from Clayton Kershaw — who was once again failing to miss bats in his fourth start of the season, but still grinding along in another OK outing to that point — Starling Marte drilled a hard ground ball to the left side. Muncy was in position to field it, and seemed poised to get one sure out, if not potentially turn two.
But as he went to one knee on the hop, “I just came up a little early, instead of staying through it,” he said, the miscue resulting in his ninth error of the season, second-most among MLB third basemen. “It’s just a stupid mistake.”
The blunder was compounded by another defensive mishap from the Dodgers (37-24) later in the inning. After Pete Alonso tied the score with a double, Brandon Nimmo put the Mets (38-23) in front by beating out an infield single, outracing Kershaw to the bag on a ground ball Freeman fielded in front of second baseman Hyeseong Kim (who might have had an easier play moving toward the bag).
Samuel Riveros of the Baldwin Park Police Dept., asked about the health of Freddie and Chelsea Freeman’s son Max. Riveros, 35, was killed Saturday in a shooting.
“Making mistakes really sucks,” Muncy said. “But when you do it with a guy like Kershaw on the mound, it cuts deep a little bit more.”
Luckily for Muncy, his night wasn’t over — getting one last at-bat to lead off the ninth.
In a 1-and-2 count, Mets right-hander Huascar Brazobán threw an elevated heater, in a similar spot Megill had tested Muncy eight innings prior. With an upper-cut swing, Muncy launched a game-tying, 408-foot missile to the right-field pavilion, declaratively flipping his bat as he trotted up the first base line.
“To be able to atone for that a little bit felt really good for me,” Muncy said.
“He [was] going through it the first six weeks of the season offensively,” added Roberts, “and then really has hit his stride the last 30-plus days.”
Going back to May 8, Muncy is now batting .314 over his last 22 games, a stretch that includes eight home runs (seven of which have come in his last six contests), 28 RBIs and 14 walks to only 10 strikeouts.
And though his defense remains a work in progress, his spike in production has been more than enough to compensate, ensuring he’s remained a fixture in the bottom half of the Dodgers’ lineup.
“Honestly, I think he’s had plenty of practice weathering some struggles offensively,” Roberts said, noting this isn’t the first time Muncy has started a season slowly with the team. “It’s certainly not easy to go on a one-for-20, one-for-25 and strike out and things like that. And to still have to go out there and play defense and then find a way to get hot and to kind of reset, get back on track. But you look at his tenure with us, that’s kind of how it’s been. So hopefully now with this swing that I think he feels good with … we can sustain some positive at-bats consistently and not go into one of these swells that we’ve experienced in years past.”
Scott, the $72-million closer who had a 4.72 ERA entering the night, experienced a similar bounce back.
A night after yielding two runs in the 10th to the Mets — marking his seventh loss or blown save this season — the left-hander retired the side in order in extras this time, benefiting from a pregame “deep dive” into his mechanics with the Dodgers’ pitching coaches to clean up his mechanics and eliminate the types of misses over the plate that had doomed him lately.
Japanese baseball legend Shigeo Nagashima has died at age 89. Former Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley once tried to buy his contract. Shohei Ohtani posted his respects on Instagram.
“I always want to be there and do well,” said Scott, who struck out Juan Soto and Alonso with sliders before inducing a ground ball from Nimmo for the final out. “It’s my job to get outs. I’m gonna keep trying to do that.”
Combined with 2 ⅔ perfect innings from Ben Casparius earlier in the night, and other key outs from Alex Vesia, Anthony Banda and newly signed right-hander José Ureña, it all set the stage for Freeman’s walk-off double in the bottom of the 10th; a high fly ball to left that Nimmo got turned around on and let fall at the warning track.
“Obviously [without] Max, we wouldn’t be in this situation without him,” Freeman said afterward.
For Muncy, Scott and the Dodgers as a whole, redemption had been earned — and a key win secured as a result.
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