NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: METS VS DODGERS

October 13, 2024

Max Muncy

Dodger Stadium

Los Angeles Dodgers

Pregame 1 Press Conference

Q. When you look at how you all won the NLDS, what did you learn just from the group? And what are you guys hoping to take into with this match-up against the Mets?

MAX MUNCY: I think the clubhouse kind of found out about each other. It's something that we knew kind of who we were the whole season. But you get into the fire like that in that kind of atmosphere you learn who you are as a team.

I think everyone really liked what they saw. And you just find out there's no quit, there's no give-up, there's no letting down on anything. And that's what you need this time of year.

Q. I'm sure the guys in the bullpen wanted more time off, but for the position players is it good to have only one day off to keep the momentum from the end of the last series?

MAX MUNCY: That's always a tough question: Is there such a thing as momentum in baseball? I don't have the answer to that.

Obviously our bullpen would like several weeks off before the next game. They've been asked to do a whole lot this year. But they haven't backed down from any of the challenges. They've responded well. They've gone out there and done their job without question, without complaining. And they're kind of the guys that are sparking us right now.

They're showing the fire for us and we all want to get behind them. We all want to give them the lead and let them go out there and do what they want to do. And we did that in the NLDS, and it was fun to watch.

Q. Watching from afar or the scouting reports you guys got yesterday, how different of a team is the Mets team than the team you last saw in May?

MAX MUNCY: The biggest thing, it's just a team we haven't seen a whole lot of. You talk about going from a team you've played in division a lot of times over the years to a team that you see once or twice a year. It's a group of guys that you just haven't seen a whole lot of.

It's a little bit different to game plan for that, whereas, when we play the Padres you already have a very good idea of what your game plan is going to be going into it, whereas you're playing a team like the Mets you almost have to start from scratch.

It's really just the familiarity that it's so much different than what we've had.

Q. The Dodgers have been here in this -- in terms of success in the postseason, only one World Series. I say "only one" because it's not easy to win a World Series; it's difficult to win World Series. But the people of Los Angeles expect the Los Angeles Dodgers to be champions every year. What do the Dodgers need to do in order to get to the next step, to get to the World Series and hopefully win it?

MAX MUNCY: I think the first thing is we've got to keep our fire and our intensity from the last series. That is something that I've seen in the past where we've won a big series and then you move on to the next one and you almost kind of let your guard down a little bit.

So the biggest thing for us immediately is we have to keep our fire and intensity. We've got to keep the same focus we had. And we've got to go out there and game plan and execute just as good as we did in the previous series.

And when you do that, I don't how many times I've said this this year, but you're playing yourself, not the other team.

You go out there and you execute the things that you can control. And that's just how you prepare for the game, how you want to execute your game plan. Stuff's going to happen; it's baseball. They're going to have their game plan, and they're going to try to deviate you from what you want to do.

But as long as you can keep doing what you want to do and prepare in the proper way and go out there with all the right tools then we trust in ourselves to move on.

Q. You didn't get to participate in the '21 playoffs, but it's kind of similar with the DS where you're facing a division rival -- tense series, emotionally and physically exhausted going into the next series. Do you see anything different from this team than that team?

MAX MUNCY: That was definitely what I was referring to where, I've talked about in the past where you've had the big series.

I obviously wasn't participating in that one, but I was there in the dugout watching. And that was something that I saw, that you beat the division rival, you're really, really high up and you almost let your guard down. And it gets taken out from underneath your feet.

That's something we're going to reiterate today and this whole series. We have to make sure we maintain our intensity and maintain our focus, and I think that goes back to the group we have in this clubhouse and the fire that we have and just the chemistry we've had.

It's almost immediately everyone was saying the same message, that we've got to make sure we stay just as fired up, just as focused and just as prepared for this series.

Q. What is your comfort level at first base right now and did it come back pretty quick for you?

MAX MUNCY: Yeah, it's pretty natural over there. I still haven't had that ball up the line. I'm not going to say that that won't be in my head if there is one up the line.

But it's a position that I played my whole career. I'm very comfortable over there. Going over there when we had our five days off in our sim games, it just kind of felt extremely natural and easy. I didn't really have to think about anything, I just let it happened. That's what I did the couple games I got over there in DS. It's not an unusual thing for me.

Q. Obviously like the last couple of years, there's so much talk about the offensive approach and game planning in the postseason. Do you feel like you guys did anything better in that department in the DS, or is that something where it's just you've got more hits to drop in at key times when you look back at that series?

MAX MUNCY: I mean, isn't that just baseball? If you win, you get more hits to drop in. We've always game planned extremely well. I just think the difference this year is you just have a different group of guys executing it.

It's really hard to answer why it hasn't worked in years past. It could be any number of things. But each year is a different group. From '20 to '21 to '22, '23, different group of guys. I know there's a lot of the same faces, but you have a different attitude in the clubhouse every single year. The one we have this year, we're really enjoying it.

Q. With talking about game planning, when you look at just this match-up today going against the starter there's not too much information this year just due to injury. Obviously had the start in the DS. How are you guys approaching it from the hitter standpoint? Are you looking at it as potentially seeing the bullpen earlier in the game, or how do you manage that with some unknown?

MAX MUNCY: A saying we've always kind of had when you're approaching a guy that may not give a ton of innings or maybe it's an opener or any number of things is he's going to go as long as we let him go.

If we put together a bunch of really poor at-bats, they're probably going to keep running him out there. If we put together a bunch of good at-bats and score some runs, get a lot of traffic on the bases, we probably won't see him too many times.

It's one of those things he'll go as long as we let him go. We're obviously preparing for him like he's a built-up starter. Whether that's the case or not, you have to prepare for him that way, and you also are preparing for everyone else just the same as we always would.