NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS DODGERS

October 8, 2024

Max Muncy

Petco Park

Los Angeles Dodgers

Pregame 3 Press Conference

Q. When you look at the offense, I know the other night you were blatant and said it was bad. What's the approach/mindset heading into this match-up this evening? And how important is it for you guys to get going in the game?

MAX MUNCY: We just need to be ourselves. Can't try to put too much pressure on us. We've got to go out there play our game. You've heard me say it a million times this year: We're playing ourselves, and we did a very bad job of playing ourselves the other night.

We've got to get back to playing ourselves the best way and preparing the right way. And I feel like we've done a good job of that these last two days.

Q. How much of a focus was the Manny throw to the dugout among you guys internally the last couple of days?

MAX MUNCY: Zero. You can't let that affect you. The Padres, as a team, as a stadium, as an atmosphere, thrive on that kind of emotion. If we play into that, we're playing right into their hands.

We've got to focus on ourselves, like I've been saying. And it's one of those things where it is what it is. It happened. We move on and we're ready to go out there and play our game tonight.

Q. How much do you think, like, the emotional dynamic of this series has factored into just how the first couple of games have played out and how it might dictate the way the rest of the series goes?

MAX MUNCY: I think you saw it in both games. The first game we played our game. The second game, we kind of tried to play into their game. It obviously backfired big time.

That wasn't on purpose. It was just the circumstances of the game happening. And, like I said, that's one of those things where you can't try to play someone else's game. We've got to play our game. We've got to get back to playing ourselves. And that's what we'll work on doing.

Q. When you "say playing ourselves" how do you define that?

MAX MUNCY: You know, it's kind of a complicated answer, but you can only control what you can control. And for us that's how we prepare, what our game plan is, what we want to try to do.

There's going to be a lot of things in baseball that happen that you have no control over. And you can't worry about that. You have to go out there and prepare your way, have your game plan, focus on the things you've been doing all year correctly.

And that's where I always say the opponent, doesn't matter who you're playing. The only name that matters is the starting pitcher because you have to game plan for that guy specifically. But other than that you're not playing the opponent as much as you're playing yourselves.

If you go out doing stuff you haven't done all year long, it's not going to be a good recipe for success.

Q. If Freddie, his ankle won't allow him to play, you may end up at first base again. You've barely touched that position since you hurt your elbow in '21. What's your comfort level?

MAX MUNCY: Well, besides the ball up the line, for obvious reasons, it's a position I'm very comfortable at. I've played most of my career there, almost won a Gold Glove there. It's a spot that kind of comes naturally.

If I have to go over there, the only thing that would worry me is that it's because Freddie's not in the game. But as for myself, it wouldn't be a big issue.

Q. What do you expect from the atmosphere tonight? What kind of a residual effect do you think will carry over from all the shenanigans from Sunday?

MAX MUNCY: Who knows. It's going to be a live atmosphere. There's no doubt about that. The atmosphere here has been, over the last several years, has been tops in baseball. I wouldn't expect anything different.

As for the carry-over, as you were talking about, I don't know. It will be one of those things we'll have to see how it plays out tonight.

Q. With the swing the other night, the home run, how are you feeling with how your at-bats are, how the swing is, especially preparing heading into tonight's game?

MAX MUNCY: That was one of those things where you hope that swing can carry you over into today. Kind of at least a good moment for me in an otherwise pretty terrible game.

You hope you can carry that feeling, that momentum into the next game, and just continue to get a job done for the guys, depending on whatever the situation calls for, just try to get the job done.

For me, you try to build on the positive moments you have, and that's one of them.

Q. When you talk about the team kind of trying to play your game and not focusing too much on the emotions, is that more of blocking them out or channelling them into something useful?

MAX MUNCY: I think each guy is their own in that answer. Some people can do better channelling it into something else. And other people do good just blocking it out entirely.

In games of this magnitude it's pretty hard to block it out, I'll say that. The better thing to do sometimes is to channel it into something more positive for the team.

Things are going to happen out there on the field, and you just can't let them affect you on a personal level. You have to find a way to take what's going on out there and transfer into something you can do positively.

If someone is doing something you don't like, instead of letting it get under your skin, just realize if you go out there and you make a bigger impact that's going to get under their skin more than you trying to fight back with them. That's what we've been focusing on, just getting back to yourself.

Q. You've seen Michael King a good amount this year. Just your perspective on what he's brought to the table against you guys?

MAX MUNCY: It's nasty. A lot of movement. A lot of movement in the wind-up. The ball is going every which way, nothing's going straight. He's got very good command, for the most part.

So for us it's just trying to -- we have organized what we're going to do; I'm not going to talk about that. But you have to be really disciplined in what we're trying to do.

So for that it's obviously tough when you're talking about the type of movement that King has. But you hope there's a couple of mistakes you don't miss.

Q. Doc talked about you guys being bullied by the fastball in previous postseasons. You kind of turned that around in Game 1. And then you get a pitcher like Yu Darvish in Game 2, which is a completely different type deal. And now you're going back to somebody who probably is going to use the fastball a little bit more. Just talk about going from one game plan to the next and then trying to get back on to something along these lines again.

MAX MUNCY: It's a chess match. It's a game of adjustments. It's any metaphor you really want to use. But that's why the postseason is extremely hard to hit.

I've talked with a lot of our guys before about we've faced teams kind of going down the stretch in the end of the regular season, and sometimes they'll purposely pitch off their game plan so that if you face them in the playoffs they're not doing the same thing. We've seen that with the Braves for several years.

There's no telling how he's going to go out there and attack us tonight. But, yeah, you definitely saw between the first two nights different game plans on their side. So for us we have to have our game plan and make the adjustment based on how the first couple of innings go.

Q. You kind of alluded to the opposing team and not playing their game and kind of the emotions behind it. Do you feel like the Padres are intentionally trying to get under your skin in any sort of way to level the playing field? Or how do you feel about it?

MAX MUNCY: I don't know about levelling the playing field, but I think that's definitely part of their game is they try to -- as I've said, they play off the emotion.

The atmosphere here plays off their emotion. And we've seen that for the last several years, even in regular season games. Just something as simple as a single and you see the guy throwing the bat 30 feet in the air, that really gets the crowd going here.

That is kind of part of their game is trying to get under your skin and trying to have the emotion come out and get you to do something that you're not normally doing.

And just, for example, if you're a pitcher and you see a guy doing that. And all of a sudden you want to throw harder and now you're missing balls right over the plate. And that's when their guys are doing the damage.

It's easier said than done, obviously, but you can't let that happen.