Muncy's hot streak rockets him atop leaderboards

CHICAGO -- Max Muncy stood at home plate for a few seconds to admire his latest piece of work as he jumped on a Marcus Stroman cutter on the inside of the plate. He then took a few steps down the first-base line before flinging his bat and starting his jog.

Muncy’s home run trot is an image the Dodgers have seen plenty of times over the last two weeks. During that span, Muncy has turned into the hottest hitter in baseball. On Sunday, Muncy passed Pete Alonso for the Majors lead with 11 homers to help the Dodgers beat the Cubs, 7-3, at Wrigley Field.

“Maybe his best tear in this 10-day, two-week period,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “He was lost early, and now you’re talking about leading the league in homers and Player of the Month notoriety or acknowledgement.”

Muncy’s road to leading the league in homers, even this early in the season, hasn’t been easy. The first nine games of the season were a nightmare for Muncy, who came into the season fully healthy now that he’s more than a year removed from suffering a torn left UCL in October 2021.

Muncy hit one homer and struck out 16 times in his first 41 plate appearances of the season, including a five-strikeout game on Opening Day. But before the series against the Giants on April 10, Muncy went to his step-back move in the box, a mechanical change that worked wonders towards the end of last season, which was a challenging campaign overall for Muncy.

Since Muncy’s change, he has turned back into the player who has earned a pair of All-Star selections and the one who led the Dodgers in homers in ‘21. Over his last 13 games, Muncy has 10 homers and 19 RBIs. Against the Cubs alone, Muncy hit five homers in seven games.

“I try not to pay too much attention to it, but it’s very rewarding,” Muncy said. “It wasn’t the best start, obviously. But it’s one of those things where sometimes, this game will tell you what needs to happen, and maybe it was telling me that I needed to make some changes. And that’s what we did, and so far it’s been working.”

With Muncy leading the way, the Dodgers have thrived at hitting homers this season. They have hit 43, the most in the National League and second in the Majors behind the Rays, who have homered in every game they’ve played this season.

On Sunday, Mookie Betts -- who started at shortstop for the first time in his Major League career -- and J.D. Martinez also joined Muncy in the home run party. Seventeen of the 22 runs the Dodgers scored in the four-game set against Chicago came via the long ball.

“It’s huge,” Betts said of the team’s ability to hit home runs. “Obviously, you don’t want to live and die by it. But right now, it’s helping us stay afloat. I don’t know if we’re out there trying to hit homers, but they’re going over the fence. So we’ll take them as we can get them.”

The Dodgers haven’t gotten hot quite yet, but they believe that time will come sooner rather than later. There have still been some uncharacteristic inconsistencies over the first three weeks of the season.

But wrapping up the series against the Cubs with back-to-back wins was a big step in the right direction. It’s the first time they’ve won back-to-back games since winning three in a row against the Rockies and D-backs from April 3-6. They hope to take that momentum to Pittsburgh as they get ready to face the upstart Pirates, who have won seven in a row.

“Super important,” Betts said of the series win. “You've got to start somewhere and fortunately, it was here. We just got to keep playing. … It’s a long season and you just got to get hot at some point.”