SAN FRANCISCO — Even as he spoke this spring and claimed he no longer needed any quick-fix aids to hit like himself, Max Muncy always left the door open to step back through.

Gone are the woes of an elbow that wasn’t quite the same most of last season after a collision at first base ended a dominant 2021 season prematurely. Muncy wanted to shed some of the last remnants of his former self — even the unorthodox step-back move he credited with saving his year when he hit like Max Muncy again for the season’s final two months. It surprised some, including Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, when Muncy showed up this spring wanting to get rid of what he said had “resuscitated him.”

Advertisement

Yet there it was on Monday night. You had to look for it to see it.

Now, it’s more of a tap back than a step back, which on Monday allowed him to free his mind. He breathed as he read Logan Webb’s offerings perfectly to draw a walk in his first time up. He smiled when he uncorked his hands on a Webb slider on the bottom half of the zone that he drove into the Giants bullpen for a three-run shot in the third. The loudest, most immediate dividends were cemented by the time he crushed a Sean Hjelle sinker that hung at the top of the zone over the left-field fence for a grand slam.

In going back to what was supposed to be a brief adjustment, Muncy once again tapped into a more recognizable version of himself, at least for a night. Like the Muncy of old, he took the misty, windy, cold Oracle Park and turned it into his personal bandbox.

He reached safely four times, including the two blasts, and drove in seven to almost single-handedly drive the Dodgers off their three-game skid with a 9-1 series-opening win.

Old, successful habits die hard, I guess.

MAX GRAND SLAM. pic.twitter.com/Le1jwWW81b

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 11, 2023

“It’s something I know that if I have to go back to it, I have it in my bag,” Muncy said earlier this spring, calling the maneuver a temporary bandage to allow his body to get into positions his elbow otherwise wouldn’t. He’d unearthed it working with hitting coach Aaron Bates last season in the cage at Coors Field, locking his swing back to its old form. It made him look like himself, with 12 homers and an .858 OPS after August last year.

He’d hoped to keep it in there, with he and the Dodgers’ hitting staff believing there was more upside to tap into with his old mechanics now that his elbow had healed and regained strength.

But a slow start put his stubbornness to the test. It even bled into his defense at third base. So, as the Dodgers departed Arizona on Sunday afternoon, Bates and Muncy got together and broke down their options.

Advertisement

“Let’s take a step back,” Muncy said, before doing it literally.

Muncy’s non-step-back mechanical adjustments had worked well in spring and had in the past, but an 0-for-5 performance with five strikeouts on Opening Day immediately thrust Muncy back into the psychological struggles of a year ago.

“(It) kind of got me into a mental rut almost immediately,” Muncy said.

His mechanics fell apart. Muncy recorded just four hits through his first 33 at-bats and entered Monday tied for the major league lead with 16 strikeouts. Tedious video stuff highlighted the problem areas, but the mental block left them searching for another immediate solution. So they went back to an old one.

“With the way the season started, there’s a lot of anxiety going on. So it’s just something that can kind of get it out of my own head,” Muncy said.

It did just that. Rather than concentrate on the positioning of his hands, or his leg kick, the set-up to his swing forced him to focus on simply being on time for each pitch. More than anything, Bates explained on Monday night, it comes down to putting Muncy in the right space.

“It’s a rhythm thing,” Bates said. “Putting him in some good positions. … He always had it in the back pocket.”

It pulled out one of the best nights of Muncy’s career.

“I think he’s going to sleep pretty well tonight,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers could absorb a struggling Muncy in their lineup a year ago — he was, after all, just one of several former All-Stars for a group that went on to set a franchise record with 111 wins anyway. This is not that group, and Muncy’s production is less a luxury than it is a necessity for a lineup looking for stability from a guy who at his best can provide it.

“We need him,” Roberts said.

“Maybe he got off to a rocky start at first,” Will Smith said, “but over the whole year, he’s going to be Max Muncy. There’s no doubt about that.”

Advertisement

At least for one night, he was. Old, bold movement and all.

(Photo of Max Muncy hitting a three-run home run against the Giants: D. Ross Cameron / USA Today)