Muncy has hit the ball hard often this year, but he’s underperformed based on some of what the Statcast numbers would project. But I know I’m still a good hitter, and it’s just trying to find ways to get back to that.” The constant search for results is enough to test even the most reinforced resolve. Earlier this spring, Muncy credited Dodgers mental skills coach Brent Walker with salvaging his season a year ago, when his swing at times felt irreparable. When he returned, he briefly abandoned the “step back” again before bringing it back. Two days after that Marsh catch, Muncy felt something in his hamstring while trying to beat out a double play that knocked him out 16 days. “He was the best player on the planet for two, three weeks,” Bates said as Muncy stormed to the top of baseball’s home run leaderboard. A miserable start in which he went 4-for-33 with 16 strikeouts to start the season brought it back, and Muncy took off. When Muncy fiddled with his mechanics this spring, he felt he was losing the rhythm the “step back” generated, so he ditched it. But his left knee was stiff by October as a result. He credited an unorthodox “step back” move with helping his swing find that rhythm for the final two months of last year when he looked very much like the hitter who has garnered MVP votes in the past. He also changed “pretty much everything” in between. So he changed bat models for the first time in 12 years, trying to find something that better fit this version of himself. But after the injury, he said “it was like having to start from scratch and not being able to carry anything over.” Internal strength testing and bat speed evaluations show Muncy is no longer inhibited by the elbow. Hitting coach Aaron Bates called Muncy’s first half “up and down.” Manager Dave Roberts said Muncy has been “searching.” He has, tinkering with every aspect of his offensive approach in hopes that something sustainable can shake itself out. I can’t really get back to myself, and I don’t really know what that’s about.” I’ve had to do things I haven’t done before to try to get that rhythm in the box. It’s one of those things where, since the injury in ’21, I just haven’t been able to find a rhythm. “With the exception of the batting average (.198), it’s really not that terrible a year. “I feel like my year’s kind of an anomaly,” he said last week after a round of batting practice. But the rest of his profile frustrates him. “I mean, it’s been pretty poor,” Muncy said of his first half. It’s value that, this time last year, he was searching to provide. He’s ranked right among the middle of players at the position in FanGraphs WAR. 807 OPS tied him with Matt Chapman for eighth. His 118 wRC+ through the first half tied him with Jeimer Candelario for ninth among qualified third basemen, and his. Confusing, because he’s tried just about everything to find what he was before a freak injury on the final day of the 2021 regular season left his elbow in tatters and his swing (and mind) in disarray. Maddening, because he feels he’s put together at-bats that should warrant better overall results. Encouraging, because his 21 home runs at the All-Star break are as many as he hit all of last season. It’s been that kind of year for the 32-year-old two-time All-Star.
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