Dodgers’ Max Muncy ‘optimistic’ after negative wrist X-rays

MILWAUKEE –– Max Muncy didn’t dodge the literal bullet. But he’s hopeful he skirted a figurative one.

After getting hit in the right wrist by a 95.5 mph sinker from Brewers reliever Aaron Ashby in the eighth inning of Friday’s loss in Milwaukee, Muncy left the game early but got good news back in the Dodgers’ clubhouse, with initial X-rays on the injury coming back negative.

“It hurts (but) it’s not broken,” Muncy said. “It is a relief. We just gotta monitor the next couple days. Typically, especially in that area, the X-rays never come back positive immediately. It kind of forms a little bit. But I’m pretty sure it hit half my wrist pad and then half my wrist … I haven’t looked at (the replay) yet, but that’s kind of what I was feeling.”

Manager Dave Roberts echoed that sentiment, saying that while Muncy is unlikely to play the rest of this weekend’s series, the club’s initial expectation is that he avoided anything more serious.

“I think it got enough of that pad to protect him,” Roberts said. “So he’ll be down for the next couple days, just to make sure we get that swelling out. But I think right now we’re breathing a sigh of relief.”

Any extended absence of Muncy, 35, would represent a major blow to the Dodgers’ offense. 

The third baseman is batting .258 this season with a team-leading 12 home runs, as well as 19 RBIs and a .878 OPS. He has also said repeatedly that his swing is in as good a place as it has been in years, having finally gotten over elbow and oblique problems that have limited his playing time the last four seasons and disrupted the mechanics of his stroke at the plate.

Muncy has suffered a right wrist fracture before, missing two weeks late in the 2019 season after getting hit by a pitch in a similar area.

This time, however, he said the pain wasn’t quite so intense.

“The biggest thing I always took with me from that (2019 injury) was just the nauseous feeling that you get, and I didn’t quite have that tonight,” he said. “So that’s why I’m feeling pretty optimistic about it.”

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The Dodgers will have options to replace Muncy over the next several days, with Santiago Espinal set to handle third base on Saturday and Kiké Hernández scheduled to return from the injured list for his season debut on Monday back in Los Angeles.

If all goes well with Muncy, though, he could be back in action by Tuesday.

“It hurt really, really bad,” he said. “In that moment, you’re trying to figure out what you can feel. Trying to assess how bad you think it is. 

But, he added, “I think we skipped the worst.”

A bullet, the Dodgers hope, dodged indeed.