News Every Day | 29 June 2024, 05:55

Dodgers’ Max Muncy increasing activity in anticipation of 2nd-half return

SAN FRANCISCO — Max Muncy has watched a lot of baseball lately. He hasn’t enjoyed it.

“It’s been terrible. It’s really sucked,” said the Dodgers third baseman, who has been out since May 15 with a strained oblique muscle that was originally considered a mild strain. “It’s been one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do. I’ve had injuries in the past but nothing that’s kept me out for this long. It’s been a tough one for me. It’s been a very frustrating one for me.”

Muncy started to ramp up his activity two weeks after the injury but had a setback and had to shut down his attempts to swing a bat. He has started that process again this past week, hitting off a tee and ‘flips’ from coaches.

He joined the Dodgers in San Francisco for this weekend series in anticipation of taking the next steps – batting practice in the cage and on the field – soon.

“With that – it having been as long as it’s been – you don’t want to create bad habits when you’re starting to come back. So the biggest thing is to have eyes on me who have seen my swing,” he said, explaining the decision to join the team rather than go to the training complex in Arizona.

“There are certain things in my swing that are so fickle that if they get off it’s really hard to come back from. So right from the get-go we’re just trying to make sure I’m doing those things right.”

Muncy was moved to the 60-day injured list and won’t be eligible to be activated until after the All-Star break. “In an ideal world,” he said, he would start a minor-league injury rehabilitation assignment before then.

“That’s where it’s going to be contingent on how he is progressing,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Whether he goes out before and gets the four days off like everyone else does, or if it doesn’t go as quickly, then take the break and then go out on rehab afterwards.

“It’s open-ended. We’ll see how he progresses. We’ve already had one setback, we don’t need another.”

JAVY THE HERO

Javier Herrera handled the foul ball off Kiké Hernandez’s bat during Wednesday’s game in Chicago with fewer nerves than he did being asked to talk to reporters about it Friday afternoon.

“I was just doing my job,” said Herrera, blushing at the attention from the media – and the players and fellow staff members who surrounded the group with phones out.

Herrera’s quick-handed save went viral Wednesday. The video showed him standing on the top step of the dugout and calmly snagging a foul ball that seemed to be headed for Shohei Ohtani, standing behind him.

Give that kid a raise. He just saved Shohei Ohtani’s life.

pic.twitter.com/WTrYr1FdmW

— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) June 27, 2024

“I saw the pitch all the way through, hit the bat and the ball pretty much found me,” he said Friday.

“(Ohtani) said thank you. And I said, ‘I told you, I have your back.’”

Ohtani posted video from Herrera’s brief media session on Instagram with the caption “My Hero.” Herrera said he got “about 80” text messages after the video started to make the rounds.

“Someone sent me the video and I saw it 100 times,” he said. “It was pretty impressive. I was impressed. But in the moment, it was just like ‘Okay, let’s keep playing.’”

The 38-year-old Herrera has been a part of the Dodgers’ clubhouse staff for 18 years and this isn’t his first brush with celebrity thanks to a foul ball. Working the left field line during a game in August 2016, he tumbled head first over the wall and into the stands while chasing a foul fly.

It went better this time.

“Yeah, definitely,” Herrera said. “I fell on my – I fell. I fell (the other time) and I’m the hero on this one, I guess. The other one I was more of a joke. It was more embarrassing.”