Dodgers News: Dave Roberts Isn’t Concerned About Max Muncy After His Rough Opening Day

The Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks in dominant fashion on Opening Day, winning 8-2 and getting contributions from pretty much everyone. The key words there, however, are “pretty much.” While Opening Day was a major success for the team as a whole, it wasn’t exactly a great day for everyone.

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, who everyone is hoping has a huge bounce back year this season, did not exactly get his 2023 season off on the right foot. Muncy came up to bat five times, and struck out every single time. The term “golden sombrero” is used when a player goes 0-4 with four strikeouts, and, apparently, we can call what Muncy did the “platinum sombrero.”

Not exactly the way you want to start your bounce back season, however, it’s just one game, and that’s exactly what his manager Dave Roberts had to say when he was asked if he was concerned about his starting third baseman’s extremely slow start.

“Not at all,” Roberts said. “I just don’t think he just saw [Zac] Gallen well today. But, no, he had a great spring and he’s healthy, and so I think that tomorrow will be a nice night for him. … Pretty safe to say he’s not gonna punch five times again this year.”

While Dodger fans were quick to worry on social media about Muncy’s performance, I’m with Roberts here. Sometimes, you’re just not seeing a certain pitcher well, and once you strikeout a few times, you can really get in your own head. But it’s way too early in the season to be worried about one performance, and Roberts isn’t going to make any drastic changes anytime soon.

Muncy is back in the lineup on Friday, in the exact same cleanup spot, and I predict he has a much better game than he did on Thursday. Then again, it would be hard to not have a better game, but I’ll go even further and say he reaches base multiple times.

It’s going to take a lot more than one bad game for Roberts to worry about Muncy. So unless this continues for a few more weeks, there’s absolutely no reason to worry about Muncy. I’m still predicting a huge year out of him in 2023.

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