JUNE 13: Manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Juan Toribio of MLB.com) the Dodgers are hopeful Muncy will be able to return after a minimal 10-day IL stint, but cautioned that the team won’t rush him back before he’s ready.
JUNE 12: The Dodgers have placed infielder Max Muncy on the 10-day injured list due to a right oblique strain, the team announced. Outfielder Luke Raley has been called up from Triple-A to fill Muncy’s spot on the active roster.
Muncy hit a two-run homer in the first inning of the Dodgers’ 12-1 win over the Rangers on Friday, but he was replaced at first base by Albert Pujols for the start of the second inning. The home run was Muncy’s team-leading 14th of the season, continuing an outstanding season that has seen Muncy hit .264/.418/.528 with a league-best 46 walks.
Unfortunately for the Dodgers, they’ll now be without this productive bat for at least the next 10 days, and potentially quite a few more if Muncy has suffered anything beyond a minimal strain. Muncy has also been bothered by a sore ankle in recent days, so it’s possible that even if his oblique problem is a minor one, the Dodgers might give Muncy beyond the 10-day minimum just to get him fully healed up and ready to go. Muncy was scheduled to undergo more tests on his oblique today but the team has yet to release any update on the severity of the injury or any sort of recovery timeline.
With Muncy out, Pujols and Matt Beaty could now serve as a righty/lefty platoon at first base. Beaty has been a productive part-timer in his three seasons with L.A., and Pujols moving into a semi-starting role for the World Series champions represents quite a turn-around for the future Hall-of-Famer over the last month. It seemed as if Pujols’ career might have been over after the Angels cut him loose in May, but since signing with the Dodgers, Pujols has hit .268/.317/.571 with five home runs over 60 PA.
If Muncy’s injury wasn’t enough, Cody Bellinger also left Friday’s game due to left hamstring tightness. Bellinger’s issue doesn’t seem to be as serious, since manager Dave Roberts told MLB.com’s Juan Toribio and other reporters that Bellinger could potentially be back in action by Sunday.
Outstanding and .264 don’t go together. 24hrs does.
BA is a good stat but not the only one.
Max leads the league in walks and OBP
OPS is what it’s all about, BA is useful but not the most important stat.
But a .964 OPS does qualify for top eight in MLB. I’ll take that over .300 BA and .650 OPS any day. As a matter of fact, Muncy is exceptional in today’s offensive environment.
How about the 164 OPS+
You’re an idiot. Just FYI
@citizen….You’re funny!
That is in a “what do you mean funny? I amuse you? I’m a clown?” sense of the word.
umm ya you do actually look like a clown
.264 in today’s game wears like .285 from the past. Muncy has no real weakness in his game.
Maybe even higher. How many hitters are under .200 or low 200’s.
league average is about 236 last I checked. The Pittsburg Pirates (Lumber Co) team 1-8 lineup that averaged 300
Cmon @Citizen. Don’t come to The Bigs with that Bush League, Arizona Fall League junk, kid! When you hit in front of Betts, Seager & then protected in the order by Turner, Bellinger, Will Smith, Pollock, Lux, etc. — as Mad Max is — OBP and OPS (which he either leads the NL in or is Top 3), while also consistently launching moonshots & stroking doubles, that .264 avg. doesn’t mean much. It’s also a batting avg. that’s down from the .275 it’s been at most of the season. And NEITHER .275/.264 are bad averages in today’s MLB.
Context sweetie. All about context… He’s the perfect batter for this Dodgers squad, while also having become a Gold Glove caliber defender at 1B & 2B.
Thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.
Muncy is a great hitter, but his BWAR seems inflated. Hard to believe he is worth more defensive runs than Mookie Betts or Chris Taylor. He seems like a shift-created defensive god.
Not taking anything away from Betts or Taylor but they don’t exactly play in neutral positions for every batter.
watch the games. Muncy has played fantastic defense at two positions this year while being a top 10 bat in the NL
Max muncy is a great player. But he’s a big jerk. Reminds me of Reggie Jackson
Is this what trolling means? Asking for a square.
Ratio
You certainly did get ratioed
You must be a Vagiants fan. The only guy he’s ever been a “jerk” to is whiney bumgarner
Pujols was supposed to only be a late inn pinch hit option. The AB’s keep on comin!
Pujols showing he has something left. It’s amazing what a change of scenery will do for a player. Yankees need to definitely trade Sanchez and possibly Judge.
Change of scenery doesn’t usually help staying on the field
Trade Judge? And whom do you expect to take his place? DH only Stanton?
Sanchez is unlikely to bring much back considering he’s likely to be non-tendered. Of the possible playoff teams only CLE is in need of a C, maybe HOU. He’s worth holding onto as long as NY is still competing for a WC spot.
Lovin Albert.
He looks to be having a lotta fun up the 405
Oklahoma City?
Baseball players are clearly not athletes.
I decided to take a gander at Pujols’ stats sheet .. so he’s the all time leader in grounding into double plays; by a lot — 56 more than the #2 player, Cal Ripken.
And at first I thought, “Gee, it’s pretty amazing just how many double plays he’s hit into in his career.” And then I noticed … 25 of the top 50 players on the all-time double play list are in the Hall of Fame and at least another 5 that either could or should be in the hall.
I guess it comes down to the fact that only the really good players are in the sport long enough to be able to hit into that many.
baseball-reference.com/leaders/GIDP_career.shtml
Pretty much means you got to be pretty good to hit cleanup for a long time. I wonder how many came as an Angel.
Multiple factors contribute to that. Longevity obviously. But also, especially early in his career, he was a great contact hitter. Low strike outs and not just contact, but hard contact. He was also one of the slowest players I’ve ever watched. When you factor in his footspeed (or lack thereof), it is pretty amazing he stole 115 bases in his career. His caught stealing rate isn’t even that bad for a guy that slow.
Pujols didn’t steal bases by beating the throw to 2nd. He stole bases by catching defenses so lax, that he could walk off 1B as the pitch was thrown and trot into 2B fairly easily
The fact he has 115 speaks to how how his baseball IQ is imo. He wasn’t beating a throw. So he had to outsmart them
He was and honestly still a fantastic contact hitter. Hit the ball more, you’re gonna give the defense more chances to make plays. Probably explains the HOF connection in general
Then add that the majority of his career he had plantar fasciitis. If you read the stories from when he went through the start of the PF issues, it’s pretty openly known it affected him even back in STL
Then add that defenses shift more than ever. As I just said, any ball knocked down by an infield defender was a guaranteed out for half his career. it’s really not shocking he’s the all time leading GIDP guy
There’s only two players (Reggie Jackson and Jim Thome) to ever strike out more than 2,500 times in their careers. Both are in the Hall of Fame and hit over 560 home runs in their career.
Mike Trout next.
Just a long string of injuries for the Dodgers.
The fact that they’re playing like The Dodgers really highlights the quality of their organization, seemingly every replacement player fills in nicely
Not really true – The offensive subs like Rios Raley Peters Yoshi Nuese have been pretty pretty awful even by 2021 standards
The fill in Bullpen options have been pretty terrible as well this year w White Santana Uceta Price Kelley and Vessia all stinking up the joint
Outside of a quick 2 weeks to start the year from McKinstry they haven’t gotten much help at all from the little guys. Those 4 really have masked some issues from us Imo
Bauer Buehler Kershaw Urias have been the glue, struggles from them would have us looking REALLY UGLY right now
Price and White have NOT been awful. I agree the Dodgers can do without the others.
Maybe a bit drastic for Price but the lack of length he’s provided has him a negative in my eyes for what I expected his contributions to be
White is just awful and a AAAA player , have never been impressed by his stuff or makeup on the mound
Uceta and Peters have shown lots of promise. Young players need to get their feet wet. Not everyone stars out of the shute like Bellinger and Smith. Gavin Lux, for instance.
Joe Kelley’s been throwing FLAMES for the past 6 weeks. If it weren’t for 2-3 blowup innings to kick off the year, he’d have an ERA around 3.20 with his heater still pushing at 98 mph consistently. He’s back. And Price has been very solid… That squad is just SO damn good.
Uceta has a 3.55 ERA and 1.18 WHIP, not bad by today’s standards, and has given length when they need it. Vesia and Bickford have excelled against hitters of their hand but struggled against batters of the opposite, especially when they fall behind in the count. They have struggled with control this year, but these seem to be new issues, as Vesia has a 2.51 career BB9 and Bickford has a 3.38. This means it is probably an easily fixable mechanical problem or simply nervousness. Kelly has an ERA of 2.84 since his first outing where he gave up 4 runs. For the season, he has a league average WHIP of 1.27 and actually knows where the ball is going, with a 2.0 BB9. Since 2 bad outings to start the year, Price has a 1.89 ERA. White has a 3.28 ERA but bad peripherals (unsustainable 5.9 HR/FB and 40.8 LOB rates, 8 unearned runs, 1.54 WHIP), so you can’t say he’s been bad but you can make the argument he shouldn’t be in the bigs. Santana has a robust 54.6 GB rate and elite average exit velocity of 86.5 mph this year, but has seen bad luck in a .357 batting average against on those ground balls. He hasn’t helped himself with a 6.6 BB9. It doesn’t matter, he’s been DFA’d. Nate Jones got over his control issues to post a 2.1 BB9 but was hurt by an inflated 20% HR/FB rate.
The bullpen subs have not been as great as we liked, but it is wrong to say they were disasters, Many of the injured relievers have returned and are doing good. We may need more arms at the deadline but our ‘pen is not in a bad shape, and I call it a strength.
Our offensive subs have sucked for the most part because our 2017 draft has been an absolute disaster so far. Players from that draft should be ready for the bigs by now, but they have mostly been busts or trade chips.* Over the past few years we have called up bench bats from the highly successful 2015 and 2016 drafts and they have made immediate impacts, but the Dodgers don’t have that this year. As 2017 was also during the period where the Dodgers couldn’t sign international prospects for more than $300K, there is very little upper level depth, so they are forced to go with players who have been blocked for years due to obvious flaws (Raley against breaking balls and Peters against high cheese), AAAA players who have hit in the minors and overseas but not in MLB and can’t be optioned to the minors to figure it out (Tsutsugo, Burns), and Sheldon Neuse, who has shown flashes of brilliance but otherwise is struggling. He is most likely simply in a slump.
I agree with you about the bench issues, and giving that the Dodgers didn’t sign their first rounder in 2018 (hurting the draft’s potential), it won’t get better for a few years. But the bullpen is fine.
*Zach Reks and Andre Jackson (both Kate round picks) are on the 40 man but not ready for the bigs just yet according to the FO.
Doesn’t Muncy need an oblique in order to strain one?
I love the fat anonymous internet trolls that criticizing highly successful professional athletes because of their body
No wonder this country has by far the most eating disorders in the world. This dudes as successful as they come in the game over the last 5 years and that’s what you got to say? I hope you don’t have children