Max Muncy knew he had gotten lucky, after his ugly-looking knee injury earlier this month proved to be nothing more than a bone bruise.
But, when doctors explained how close he came to suffering something so much worse, from when Michael A. Taylor slid into his leg at third base on July 2, even Muncy was amazed by the infinitesimal margins.
“If the timing was just a millisecond different either way,” he was told, “you’re probably looking at surgery, and done for a long time.”
Instead, barely two weeks removed from having the outside of his knee bent inward on that play, Muncy was out doing early work at Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon; running in the outfield, playing catch with coaches and performing agility drills in front of trainers without any obvious signs of pain or discomfort.
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“We’re pleasantly, not surprised, but happy with the spot that I’m in right now,” Muncy said afterward, having also taken swings for the first time since his injury earlier on Friday afternoon. “It feels great. I’m moving well. Progressing quickly. We’re trying to be smart about it, and understand where we’re at, and what it’s gonna take to get back on the field. But we’re in a really good spot … We’re kind of right where we think we should be at.”
If not, it seems, already a few steps ahead.
While Muncy was initially expected to miss roughly six weeks with his left knee bone bruise, manager Dave Roberts struck a more optimistic tone as the Dodgers opened the second half of their season.
“He’s in great shape right now,” Roberts said Friday. “I don’t really know a timeline. But I do know … it’s going to be a lot sooner than anticipated, which is good for all of us.”
Since Muncy — who was one of the hottest hitters in baseball in May and June — got hurt, the Dodgers have not looked like the same offense. In their last 11 games entering Saturday, the club was 3-8, averaging less than three runs per game, and struggling to fill the gaping hole their slugging third baseman has left in the middle of the lineup.
Since the start of July, only the penny-pinching Pittsburgh Pirates have been worse than the Dodgers in batting average (.205) and OPS (.594).
“We've still got a lot of good players,” Roberts said. “But yeah, there's a certain line of demarcation when Max is not in the lineup, what happens to our offense.”
The Dodgers’ problems, of course, go beyond Muncy’s absence. Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman have all been slumping of late (or, in Betts’ case, for much of the season). Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman have been nowhere near their typical standard since returning from injuries in May. And the depth options the Dodgers have called upon have provided few sparks of life.
Still, Muncy figures to be a linchpin in the Dodgers’ long-term potential at the plate — with his recovery growing ever steadily in importance as the rest of the lineup flounders in his wake.
“We got to figure out how to get something going," said outfielder Michael Conforto, chief among the Dodgers’ underachievers this season. "Every time we go out there, we expect to score, and that's what we've been doing all year. It's just one of those stretches [where it’s] a little bit tougher to get runs in. But, you know, obviously, we have faith in our guys, and some big names in here that made their careers on scoring runs and driving guys in. I think we'll be OK."
Muncy, of course, is one of those proven names.
And in another fortunate stroke with his recovery, he remains confident his injury won’t significantly impact his swing once he does come back.
“If [the injury] was on the inside of the knee, it’d probably be a different story,” Muncy said. “But just being on the outside, I think it’s a good spot, knowing that I don’t feel it at all when I’m pushing off on the backside.”
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Muncy tested that theory for the first time Friday, taking some light swings in the cage that he said “felt fine.”
“It’s a lot of work, more work than actually playing in the game, which always sucks,” Muncy said of his rehabilitation process. “But it’s that way for a reason … You don’t want to have any other injuries that are a side effect from it.”
So far, even that latter concern has been quelled, with Muncy noting that “there’s no lingering side effects with it.”
“All in all,” he reiterated, “we’re about as lucky as we could be.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
