{"id":128911,"date":"2025-09-09T00:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128911\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T00:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T00:14:07","slug":"max-muncy-rejoins-los-angeles-dodgers-after-23-game-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/128911\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Muncy rejoins Los Angeles Dodgers after 23-game absence"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Max Muncy<\/a> was back in the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 lineup on Monday night after missing 23 games with an oblique injury.<\/p>\n

The scuffling NL West leaders hope he brings an offensive punch that\u2019s been missing.<\/p>\n

Muncy is hitting .258 with 17 home runs and 64 RBI in 89 games. The third baseman had been on the injured list since Aug. 15, his second IL stint of the season. He was out a month over July and August with a left knee bone bruise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big boost,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said before the game. \u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting for this one for a long time, not to add any pressure to Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muncy and his left-handed bat were fourth in the batting order against Colorado behind Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe body feels in a good spot,\u201d he said before the game. \u201cThis is kind of one of those rare rehab assignments where you\u2019re not entirely worried about results. You\u2019re just more worried about how is your body coming out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers were 1-5 on their East Coast swing, including a stunning 4-3 loss at Baltimore<\/a> after Yoshinobu Yamamoto was an out from Major League Baseball\u2019s first no-hitter this season. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching every single inning, and it\u2019s a tough one to come back from when there\u2019s no off-day,\u201d Muncy said. \u201cBut that\u2019s why I\u2019ve always said we got to keep our focus just one day at a time. If we get an entire group of guys buying into that, then I\u2019m going to feel pretty good about our chances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers took a one-game lead over second-place San Diego into Monday night\u2019s series opener against the last-place Rockies. They trailed Philadelphia by four games for the National League\u2019s No. 2 seed, with the NL East leaders set to visit Los Angeles next week.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers were 3-7 in their last 10, having struggled against last-place Pittsburgh and Baltimore. <\/p>\n

\u201cTime\u2019s running out to climb out of it,\u201d Muncy said. \u201cThe only team that we need to be worrying about is ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Muncy back, catcher Chuckie Robinson was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/MLB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Max Muncy was back in the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 lineup on Monday night after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[24017,64,63,4034,485,89843,89842,3912,10214,12215,1187,6592,591,6784,6590,5886,5149,85,47542],"class_list":["post-128911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-athlete-injuries","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baseball","tag-california","tag-chuckie-robinson","tag-co-state-wire","tag-colorado","tag-dave-roberts","tag-freddie-freeman","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-max-muncy","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-mookie-betts","tag-san-diego","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-sports","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}