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When Clevinger pumped a changeup down the middle of the plate, Muncy hit it into the Padres’ bullpen, a three-run home run. Two batters later, Ramirez hit Will Smith – actually his jersey – with a pitch to drive in another run. When Chris Taylor blooped a single into no-man’s land in shallow center field, the tying run scored. Turner (who hit his first career grand slam in Saturday’s scoring orgy) sent a fly ball to the warning track in right-center field where Diamondbacks right fielder Josh Reddick short-armed it as center fielder Daulton Varshho closed in. Diamondbacks reliever Noe Ramirez walked pinch-hitter Zach McKinstry to light the fire for the Dodgers in the eighth.
Betts was rolling in recent days, but Muncy has been one of the big leagues’ elite hitters for three months and Turner is one the few hitters in the majors with a batting average above .300. Muncy began the 2015 season with the Nashville Sounds of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League , but was promoted to the major leagues on April 25 after second baseman Ben Zobrist was placed on the 15-day disabled list. On May 17, 2015, Muncy hit his first major league home run off of Chicago White Sox pitcher Jeff Samardzija. He split the 2016 season between Nashville and Oakland, batting .186 in 51 major league games in 2016.
Dodgers win on walk-off home run by Max Muncy
He routinely exited starts after the fifth inning or earlier. The remainder of the night, Anderson allowed his changeup to lead the way. Only one other ball left the yard, when Brandon Crawford turned on a changeup for a two-run homer in the sixth inning that stayed inside the right field foul pole.
Muncy’s dominance of the Giants has eclipsed a single moment against a single pitcher. LOS ANGELES — The essential moment of Max Muncy’s highlight reel against the San Francisco Giants, if not his entire career, came on June 9, 2019. On that sunny Sunday afternoon, Muncy hit a home run against Madison Bumgarner that landed in San Francisco Bay.
Max Muncy’s home run lifts Dodgers over Giants
Will Smith was then hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and Chris Taylor tied the score with a single. Dodgers starter Andrew Heaney limited the damage against him to one inning, the fourth. It ended with the Padres hitting balls 104, 100, 108 and 98 mph, sandwiched around a fielding error by Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux. Taylor, who like Lux has considerable experience playing across the diamond, has been a quality fantasy option ever since his first full season with the Dodgers during the 2017 campaign. He’s been a quality option for fantasy managers with his ability to collect home runs and stolen bases while possessing eligibility at a number of positions. Throw in his increased run and RBI totals playing for a Dodgers club that has scored the second-most runs in the league since 2017 and you have a player who has been crucial in determining fantasy championships at times.
He has worked for daily newspapers as a sportswriter since 1983, in Southern California since 1987 and at the Orange County Register since 1999. Zach Reks pinch-ran and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. After getting to a cautious 3-and-1 count to Betts, the Diamondbacks opted to intentionally walk him and pitch to Muncy. While he still provided solid home run and stolen base production last season, the underlying data just wasn’t there. Plenty has changed for the Los Angeles Dodgers since the team stepped off the field after their National League Division Series defeat to the division-rival San Diego Padres. Trea Turner, Cody Bellinger, Tyler Anderson, and Andrew Heaney all joined other franchises.
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As of writing this, Justin Turner, Craig Kimbrel, and Joey Gallo all remain free agents. We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions. J.P. Hoornstra covers Major League Baseball and is the author of 'The 50 Greatest Dodger Games Of All Time.' He once recorded a keyboard solo on the same album as two of the original Doors.
The fact that we’re playing really good baseball and we have a really good record right now. Justin Turner and Bellinger were fifth and seventh respectively on the team in plate appearances with runners in scoring position, accounting for nearly a sixth of the Dodgers’ 630 total plate appearances with runners in scoring position last year. In fact, you could make the argument that the presence of Treinen, Vesia, and Phillips only helps Graterol’s save potential as they could be utilized in higher-leverage situations earlier in games. A quick pitch from Wood appeared to catch Muncy off guard in his first plate appearance.
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Flashing a cut fastball that touched 96 mph, Jansen struck out two of the three batters he faced. Peters’ homer, a solo shot in the fifth inning, was the first home run of his career. Turner’s home run, his ninth of the season, immediately followed a Mookie Betts triple in the third inning. “Max, I think you could argue, is one of the best two or three baseball players in the game right now,” Manager Dave Roberts said.
The Giants’ aggressive approach forced the left-hander to adjust his. Then in the third inning, the Dodgers strung together five consecutive singles to create some separation. Trea Turner extended his hitting streak to 13 games during that span, and Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy and Justin Turner each drove in a run. Roberts said the shortstop will head to Arizona to take at-bats and play in simulated games at the organization’s spring training facility when the team opens the second half in Denver on Friday. From there, if he emerges without a hitch, Seager could come off the injured list July 19 when the Dodgers host San Francisco without going on a rehabilitation assignment. Sunday’s comeback sealed a three-game series win over the cellar dwellers after the Dodgers dropped three of four games to the Miami Marlins — the NL East’s last-place team.
The Athletics released Muncy toward the end of spring training in 2017. LOS ANGELES ― Mike Clevinger had only hit three batters with a pitch this season prior to Saturday night’s game between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres. Will Smith was batting in the fifth inning when Clevinger, the Padres’ hirsute right-hander, unleashed a wild changeup.
Essentially, the veteran is getting beat in the zone a lot. His zone swing-and-miss rate was the third-highest among batters with at least 250 plate appearances. What’s more, he wasn’t anywhere near as effective against four-seamers as he was in the past. Gonzalez allowed a two-run home run to Donovan Solano in the top of the sixth inning, tying the score at 3-3. Muncy, down to an 0-and-2 count after fouling off three straight pitches from Wood (5-2), responded with his 11th home run of the season in the bottom of the sixth.
He corrected an obvious, season-long flaw with one swing Saturday. Too often this year, Muncy has swung underneath a pitch he might have hit for power in the past. He’s hit no fewer than 35 home runs in a full season since 2018; this year he is on pace for 17.
Turner collected his second RBI of the night on a single in the fourth inning. The Dodgers’ offense jolted awake in the eighth inning with help from the bumbling Diamondbacks. With the bases loaded and no outs, Turner skied a routine fly ball to the warning track in right field, where former Dodger Josh Reddick, the recipient of boos all weekend, dropped it.
Between Muncy’s two home runs and a three-run shot by Joey Gallo in the second inning, the Dodgers collected all of their runs by virtue of the home run. After sloppy defense allowed the Giants to take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning, the Dodgers quickly erased their deficit and never looked back. The club was hopeful that he would return at the beginning of July until he suffered a setback. Now the Dodgers eye Seager returning for the team’s first homestand out of the All-Star break. The three runs were unearned by virtue of the error, but it turned the Dodgers’ 2-0 lead into a 3-2 deficit. Bill Plunkett graduated from Michigan State with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
By not allowing an earned run in 4 ⅔ innings, Heaney lowered his earned-run average for the season to 0.64. According to Stats Perform, that’s the lowest ERA in at least 25 innings by any pitcher over his first six starts since Fernando Valenzuela (0.33) in 1981. The solid contact of a record-setting 22-run, 21-hit, eight-home run game still reverberating off the hills in Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers went quietly for the first seven innings Sunday afternoon, managing just one run on five hits. But they rallied for three runs in the eighth inning to tie the game and won it on Muncy’s walk-off home run in the ninth, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks, 7-4, on Sunday afternoon.
