NL DIVISION SERIES: DODGERS VS PHILLIES

October 8, 2025

Max Muncy

Dodger Stadium

Los Angeles Dodgers

Pregame 3 Press Conference

Q. When you guys were struggling during the second half of the season, you kept talking about, we know we're a good team; we're going to play the way we want to at the end of the season. Where does that faith come from, knowing that you guys were able to get to the level of play you've had, even in the last couple of weeks of the regular season and so far in the postseason?

MAX MUNCY: I think it boils down to the guys we have in the clubhouse. We have a lot of experience, a lot of really good players. We've been there before. We accomplished it.

We knew who we are as a team all year long. Even though we weren't playing up to it at certain points we trusted who we were. Like I said, we knew who we were in the clubhouse, not one person faulted in there, even in the rough times.

There were some rough times this year, but no one was faltering in the clubhouse. And I think the reality was the group of guys we have in there, with the amount of experience and talent to just know we were going to come through it.

Q. You talked a lot about the challenges being a defending champion, but was going through like another regular season last year that had a lot of ups and downs and then playing well through October, did that help with that, knowing, okay, we were able to do this last year and we know that when we get to this part of the year we can be playing the way we want to?

MAX MUNCY: Yeah, like I said, having been there and done that, and then there's also the understanding us knowing that a little more than halfway through the year we were starting to get some of our starting pitchers back. They were starting to get healthy. Just knowing that they were going to start get into a groove. Once that happened, it was time for the offense to come around.

I think just for us seeing the guys coming off the injured list, I think that alone was just a big boost to us, knowing that we're not going into the postseason the same way we went into it last year. It's a completely different mindset almost.

And, like I said, that's just understanding we've got guys coming back. We've got guys getting healthy. We're starting to get into what we were expecting to be all year long. I think that's just really all it was.

Q. Did the caliber of starting pitching you guys have gotten take some of the pressure off the offense, or just give you guys where you can feel like you have a little more time to figure out an opposing starter, anything like that?

MAX MUNCY: I wouldn't say it takes pressure off of us. Our job as an offense is to not worry about what our pitching staff is doing. We've got to go out there find a way to put pressure on a team every single inning.

Even if we're not scoring runs, we've got to figure out a way to get pressure out there. That's our whole job as an offense every single game regardless of what's happening on the other side of it.

Q. Would you say, team-wide, you guys are hitting on all cylinders now, or is there another gear in there?

MAX MUNCY: I still think there's another gear in there. I don't think we fully reached where we can be at. And that's not saying we are, and that's not saying we aren't. But I still think there's a whole other level in there we haven't reached yet.

Q. What would tell you you've reached it?

MAX MUNCY: I think you would know. (Laughter).

Q. You've talked about people coming back. You were one of those guys in September. How do you assess how you've been since returning, like physically, everything?

MAX MUNCY: I wouldn't say great. It's obviously great to be back. But just you come back for a short stint, you get injured again. You come back for a short stint, and then you're injured again. It's hard to find any rhythm in there.

With everything that was happening towards the end of the season -- a big part of baseball is just having rhythm, especially in the batter's box. Mechanics can be whatever you want them to be, but if you don't have the rhythm in the batter's box, sometimes it's tough to compete. So for me it's still trying to find that rhythm.

Q. Game 2, you nailed a play in the bottom of the ninth. And that's not that easy. Postseason has a different atmosphere. And how hard is it to stay calm and focus on the games?

MAX MUNCY: It's really hard. Your heart's racing, especially in that atmosphere. We've talked about it a bunch among the guys. You hear all throughout baseball that Philly in the postseason is one of the best environments that there is. And not a lot of us had ever been in a postseason series in Philly.

And experiencing it firsthand, I can agree it's one of the best environments. So in that moment, you know, it's tough to kind of keep your heart rate low. And thankfully we have a whole group of guys out there on the field that have tons of experience.

I was talking about it this morning, just for us to discuss that bunt play, you have three, four guys in the infield, all 10-plus years. It was kind of like, all right, guys, let's take a breath; this is a big moment, let's take a breath and not let it get out of hand. Here's what we need to do.

You talk about it. It was like, all right. We're just going to roll through it. Obviously it's not like a Spring Training play but we're just going to roll through it like we're running a drill. There's a lot of things can go wrong, but thankfully for us we were able to keep things slow, and we executed it.

Q. You kind of suggested it a couple times talking about the up and down seasons, regular seasons. But the last 10 or so regular seasons have all ended here with you guys in the playoffs and you start to play really well in the playoffs. Is it almost like this is an extension of the regular season, this is where you guys start focusing? Because it kind of looks that way?

MAX MUNCY: I don't know if that's the case. Obviously every year in Spring Training every team's going to show up with a big speech about our goal this year is to win the World Series, blah, blah, blah.

The reality of it is there's only a handful of teams that can actually say that is a realistic goal. And we're one of those every single year.

So for us, making the postseason is not something that you should ever take for granted, and we definitely don't. But we expect to be here.

And once we get to this point, it's a whole other level. And for a couple of years we went through a stretch where we had a little trouble flipping the switch when we got to this point. We rolled through the regular season, and we just couldn't find a way to flip that switch at this point in the year.

So the last couple of years, I feel like we've found that way. And I think that's just what's carrying us.

Q. What about Dodger Stadium gives you all such a home-field advantage?

MAX MUNCY: This place has an aura about it. It's the biggest capacity in baseball. Everybody talks about it when you come here. The lights seem a little brighter. The music seems a little louder -- that might actually be because it is a little louder.

That's part of the perks of being at Dodger Stadium, we have that sound system. It sounds silly to say something like a sound system could be an advantage. But it really is. When the speakers in the center field are cranking and the crowd going absolutely nuts and you feel the field shaking beneath your feet, it's a really big advantage. And that's something we've always had here.

When we've had those big moments, there's arguably no place that can get louder than Dodger Stadium, especially in the postseason. When you have 56, 57,000 people screaming all at the same time in a big moment, it's pretty wild. That's an advantage that we've always had here, and the guys love it.

Like I said, we've heard other players all the time talk about how cool it is to come here and play. There's just something about this place where it always just seems a little different.

Q. You talked earlier about rhythm. What is your theory on momentum? Obviously the Dodgers have it right now with nine straight wins. How important is it, do you think, to try to end this thing tonight, to not relinquish that momentum?

MAX MUNCY: Yeah, momentum's always something that you don't know if it's real or not. You definitely feel it, though, as a player in certain situations, you feel the momentum change.

Obviously we want to finish this tonight, and we don't want to let anything slip away from us. That's one of those things, when you talk about momentum, if you don't finish it tonight, you feel like it's slipping away. That's definitely not something you want to have happen.

Q. The other night Bryce Harper was talking about this, how this used to be such a great pitcher's ballpark, Dodger Stadium. Now the ball carries much more than it ever has. Why do you think that is?

MAX MUNCY: I saw an article talking about that. I've played here for a long time, and I still don't know that -- I know numbers and statistics are going to say what they say -- I still don't know that I fully believe in that.

At nighttime, traditionally the ball doesn't travel as much here. The marine layer comes in. And it's not a big field overall, but the ball just doesn't travel. Because it's not a big field, there's not a lot of grass out there for balls to drop in.

So this has always been a tough place to hit. The one thing we have going for us is the infield is always traditionally very fast. We have short grass. It's hard. The ball flies through the infield a little bit.

But to answer your question, I guess Shohei. I don't know. (Laughter). There's not a park out there to hold Shohei, and he's hitting 50-plus home runs a year. And a lot of those come here. I don't know if that skews the numbers, but I still don't fully buy into it, that this is an amazing hitter's park.