Max Muncy did it again. Specifically, he did it twice again.
After going yard two times in the first game of the inaugural Giants-Dodgers series of 2023, Muncy gave an encore performance in the finale, hitting two more jacks on Wednesday in another Los Angeles rout. Once again, San Francisco chose not to pitch around, let alone walk a player who has tagged them to the tune of 21 home runs since 2020. Here’s what Gabe Kapler said postgame about his intentional walk philosophy.
“No hard and fast rule around it,” Kapler said postgame. “We’ll use the intentional walk occasionally. We especially like it if there’s a really dangerous hitter without a dangerous hitter behind him, and you don’t have the platoon advantage and you might have it the next at bat. We also think it makes sense when you fall behind in the count. Once you have a strike on a hitter, that hitter becomes less dangerous, I think that’s been pretty well studied over the years, but no hard and fast rules if that’s what you’re asking.”
That answer will be as unsatisfactory for many Giants fans as the two home runs were. It was certainly unsatisfactory for KNBR’s John Lund, who went off on the Giants’ decision to keep pitching to Muncy on Thursday’s Papa & Lund Show. Here’s a transcript of what Lund had to say, edited for brevity:
I get what Gabe is saying. Analytics tell you this. Okay, but it’s first and third and you have an open base and you have a slow DH behind him, you cannot take the chance to pitch to him. Now if you don’t want to put the four fingers down that’s fine, but at least try to get him to swing at something that’s completely out of the zone. I know that Gabe didn’t tell Brebbia to throw a hanging breaking pitch that he hit out of the yard, but I don’t think you should be in that position, and the fact that you are at 2-0 just put him on the base.
The explanation afterwards was even worse than what happened…I love analytics and fully embrace them and all these different things, but at times there are exceptions to the rules and you’ve got to use your eyes, and I don’t think they do that enough.
It’s a 3-2 game, one out, and there’s nobody on the first time around, and there’s no real analytical look on [Scott] Alexander vs. Muncy. It’s 1-for-2 with a walk. So there’s no advantage either way. I know Alexander’s pitching well, it’s left-on-left and analytics tell you…but your eyes tell you that Muncy crushed you on Monday twice and Max Muncy through 2020 has 21 home runs against this team and has 49 hits. You have to dictate how you’re going to get beat. You can’t get beat by him and then you did. Okay, so they did it once. He’s done it three times in the series.
Now you have an open base again with a DH behind him who’s slow with one out, you can’t let Max Muncy beat ya, and he beats you again. I understand the philosophy, but at times you have to go against what the numbers say, because the guy is absolutely killing you.
Does Bruce Bochy pitch to Muncy there? I don’t think he does.
They are too reliant at praying at the alter of the computer, and last night was an example of it. If you don’t want to walk him, where was a brush back pitch? Where was something to make him feel uncomfortable, where was something to do something different, to take Max Muncy out of his comfort zone. I didn’t see one thing last night. There has to be something, you have to change it up.
Catch Papa & Lund weekdays from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.