LOS ANGELES -- To those on the outside looking in, there have been two versions of Max Muncy this season: one before he began wearing glasses, and one afterward.
Muncy doesn't deny that his recent run of success at the plate -- where he's rediscovered his power stroke -- started when he began wearing prescription glasses to correct astigmatism in his right eye during games. But he's been hesitant to attribute his turnaround to the eyewear, in part because it would diminish the hard work that he has put in to get back to this point.
"I think I'm not selling out to them because it's not like I was really terrible for several years," Muncy said. "It's just one of those things where maybe it is because of the glasses, but for me, I want to trust in the work that I've been doing and I want to trust in myself that I didn't just bring in something random and that's what's helping me."
Muncy slugged two homers -- including a game-tying shot to lead off the bottom of the ninth -- before Freddie Freeman finished the job with a walk-off double in the bottom of the 10th, sending the Dodgers to a 6-5 win over the Mets on Tuesday night.
There was an air of redemption at Dodger Stadium, as the walk-off victory was also made possible by a 1-2-3 frame from Tanner Scott in the top of the 10th, one night after he was charged with the loss in extras.
For Muncy, too, there was some redemption in his big swing in the ninth. Although his first homer of the game capped a four-run first inning, the third baseman also made a costly error in the fifth that set the stage for the Mets to erase a solid Dodgers lead. Starter Clayton Kershaw went on to allow two unearned runs and departed with two outs.
That made Muncy's ninth homer of the season, and his fifth in the past four games, that much sweeter.
"Making mistakes really sucks," Muncy said of his ninth error this season. "But when you do it with a guy like Kershaw on the mound, it cuts deep a little bit more. To be able to atone for that a little bit felt really good for me."
Said Kershaw: "That’s part of being on a team. We just try to pick each other up. Kind of made a tough play there, no big deal. But he’s swinging the bat awesome right now. Happy for him. Obviously, it felt good for him to hit that second one, for sure, but it felt good for me, too, to see, so that was great."
Muncy himself has said it's "hard to deny" that his production at the plate began to tick up when he started wearing glasses. Although he has near-perfect vision, Muncy learned he was slightly left-eye dominant after visiting the same optometrist that diagnosed Kiké Hernández with astigmatism last year. He wore the glasses in a game for the first time on April 30, the day he ended his career-long home run drought.
The numbers don't lie.
Before April 30: .180 average, .531 OPS, five extra-base hits (no homers), 105 plate appearances
From April 30 on: .277 average, 1.015 OPS, 13 extra-base hits (nine homers), 118 plate appearances
Muncy's hot stretch indeed coincides directly with when he began wearing glasses. But the fact that he was able to turn his season around in such a big way also speaks to his mental fortitude.
"He's had to go through some adversities, and it certainly hasn't been linear for him," manager Dave Roberts said, "whether it be the defense or the droughts offensively and kind of hearing noise from the outside. But he's built a nice hard shell in the sense of just really trying to put his head down and keep the blinders on and trying to focus on whatever situation is at hand at the moment."
The Dodgers have seen that resilience from Muncy over the course of a season, as well as during individual games. Just as he showed on Tuesday.
"For him to respond that way and to block out the error that he made in that fifth inning was big," Roberts said. "To play in this market and on this ballclub, you have to be able to weather some of those storms and keep going."