Last Night In Baseball: Dodgers Vs. Athletics Means Max Muncy Vs. Max Muncy

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: We got what we all deserve on Monday: Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy getting a chance to take on Athletics third baseman Max Muncy. Maxes Muncy did not disappoint, either. In the bottom of the second inning, in his first at-bat of the day, Max Muncy (A’s) singled to Max Muncy (Dodgers), likely fulfilling some kind of prophecy. Max Muncy (Dodgers) had already singled earlier in the inning, and later on would add to his day by hitting a game-tying solo homer in the top of the fourth. That was his 17th dinger of the year, and this one went 422 feet. Max Muncy (A’s) would end up getting a walk later, and he scored a run on top of the hit and free pass, but he couldn’t quite match the other Max Muncy, nor the Athletics the Dodgers, in the opening matchup of this series. Center fielder Andy Pages made it a 5-3 game with his 16th homer of the year later in the fourth, and the Dodgers didn’t look back from there. The biggest blast of the day came off the bat of DH Shohei Ohtani, who, in the sixth inning, demolished a Matt Krook sweeper that was left up in the zone. Ohtani hit this one 432 feet to right field, with an exit velocity of 112.3 mph, and all of a sudden it was 8-3, Dodgers. Look at this side view of the swing. You don’t have to guess at how it came off the bat at that speed when you see how fast the actual swing was. Both teams would add another run before this one wrapped, but it was all Dodgers once Max Muncy tied things up in the fourth, and this despite Los Angeles starter Eric Lauer allowing nine hits and a walk in his six innings: given how often the ball went in play — he struck out just two A’s — he probably should have allowed more than three runs, but he didn’t, and the bullpen mostly did its job, too. Despite the loss, the Athletics did have another noteworthy moment outside of the Muncy vs. Muncy of it all. Infielder Joshua Kuroda-Grauer was making his MLB debut, and hit a single his first time up. Waiting for him at first was MLB’s active hits leader, Dodgers’ first baseman Freddie Freeman. Kuroda-Grauer would notch another single in the bottom of the sixth, then do a little bit of a Freeman impression in the ninth when he hit a double for his first extra-base hit in the majors. Just 2,518 hits and 567 doubles to go before Kuroda-Grauer catches Freeman in both stats. It took until the bottom of the ninth, but the Cubs defeated the Padres on Monday. With the game tied 2-2, San Diego didn’t have closer Mason Miller begin the inning, instead leaving Jason Adam — who had pitched a clean eighth inning — to start the ninth. Adam would give up singles to shortstop Dansby Swanson and center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, which brought on the hook and Miller. While Miller is terrifyingly difficult to hit, there wasn’t any wiggle room here in a tie game with the game-winning run standing on second and no outs. Third baseman Alex Bregman also singled, loading the bases, and then Miller got first baseman Michael Busch to hit into a double play without allowing a run to score. Again, though, this is the problem with Miller — or anyone — coming in with the game-winning run already on base and no outs. DH Seiya Suzuki would hit a fly ball to left on a slider in the middle of the plate, and that drove in Swanson for the W. That makes for an MLB-leading 10th walk-off win of the season for the Cubs, who managed to hold the Padres to two runs despite starter Shota Imanaga allowing nine hits in his 6 ⅓ innings of work — San Diego couldn’t string those knocks together enough to score more runs, and Chicago benefited. The Reds seemingly had things in control against the Brewers, as Cincinnati was up 3-0 after scoring a pair of runs in the fifth. There was a whole lot of game left at that point, though, and Reds’ starter Nick Lodolo exited after five scoreless innings in favor of the bullpen. Cincinnati’s pen immediately made things worse: Milwaukee scored a pair in the bottom of the sixth to cut the lead to one. Chase Petty relieved Lodolo, and while he got catcher William Contreras to ground out to start the sixth, first baseman Andrew Vaughn hit a double, then Christian Yelich pinch-hit and walked. Jake Bauers would also pinch-hit, and he drove in Vaughn with a single, before Petty threw a wild pitch to the next batter, right fielder Sal Frelick, on ball four — that allowed Yelich to score, as well. Petty ended up staying in the game despite all of this, which worked out better for the Brewers than the Reds: second baseman Brice Turang faced Petty in the seventh, and the result was a game-tying homer. The eighth inning would be the third in a row that saw Milwaukee score, this time when Frelick singled and infielder Joey Ortiz followed with his second homer of the year, a 412-foot shot to center off of Tejay Antone. Trevor Megill came on for the save in the top of the ninth, and wrapped three innings of scoreless relief for the Brewers — basically the opposite of the performance of the Reds’ pen. The defeat dropped Cincinnati to 12.5 back in the NL Central behind Milwaukee — which maintained a 5.5-game lead on the Cubs with the W — and also saw the Reds drop to five games back of the Cardinals for the third NL wild-card spot. Top of the fifth inning. The Marlins entered it down 5-2 to the Rockies, but then shortstop Otto Lopez hit a leadoff solo homer off starter Sean Sullivan to cut the lead to 5-3. Second baseman Xavier Edwards would follow that dinger up with a single and steal second base, but Sullivan would record two outs to nearly get out of the middle of the order and further danger. First baseman Kyle Stowers drew a five-pitch walk before that could happen, though, and Sullivan was lifted for reliever Victor Vodnik, still responsible for the two runners on. The Marlins responded to the righty Vodnik by putting pinch-hitter Griffin Conine, a lefty, at the plate. And Conine crushed the first pitch in the strike zone, 433 feet and 110.1 mph off the bat, into the right field stands. Check out the trajectory on this three-run shot. You don’t get much more gone than that one. It put the Rockies up, 6-5, but that wasn’t going t be enough. Colorado ended up scoring two more times, but lucky for Miami, it pushed another four runs across to win, 10-7, with Conine logging another of those after drawing a walk in the seventh. The Marlins have the best record in MLB in June, at 16-9. It has them just 5.5 games behind the Braves in the NL East, and effectively tied for the third wild-card spot in the NL: Miami is 45-40, just .002 points of winning percentage behind the 43-38 Cardinals. The Marlins are surging, but the Mets? The Mets are not doing that. New York is now 1-9 over its last 10 games and 9-17 in June as a whole, thanks to being outscored by 33 runs. The latest loss came against the Blue Jays, and it was just by a 2-1 score, but here’s where things get ugly despite the close loss: New York allowed an inside-the-park homer to George Springer. On the sixth pitch of the game. At first, it just looked like an error for extra bases because left fielder Juan Soto misjudged a bounce, but then it became a Little League homer once Soto didn’t run hard after the misplayed ball and center fielder A.J. Ewing somehow picked up the ball and then fumbled it away in the transfer from his glove to his hand before he could throw it. It goes into the scorebook as a triple and a run on an error — Soto misjudged the ball, yes, but in a way that happens on bounces, and “not running as fast as George Springer is” does not constitute an error, so the error goes to Ewing for also forgetting how to baseball in a more tactile way —  but unofficially, that’s an inside-the-park job. It put the Mets in a hole that shouldn’t have been that large, but with Trey Yesavage limiting them to one run over 6 ⅔ innings and the Jays’ bullpen shutting New York down the rest of the way, it was. Toronto is 40-45, just 2.5 games out of a wild-card spot in an AL that is struggling to find itself in 2026, but the Mets would be in serious trouble even if they weren’t in the senior circuit: New York is 35-50, joining the Angels, Royals and 52-loss Rockies as the teams to already hit the wrong half-century mark in ‘26. The Mariners defeated the Angels, 6-2, and largely because of the performance of second baseman Cole Young. Young went 3-for-2 with two runs and three RBIs, courtesy a pair of homers. Both of those balls were shots, too — the first came in the bottom of the third off of Angels’ starter Ryan Johnson, and went 412 feet to cut the lead to 2-1. The second of them would wait until the sixth, as part of a three-run inning that gave the game its final score. Here, young faced reliever Mitch Farris, and he once again sent a ball over 400 feet into the stands with a two-run blast. This was the first multihomer game of Young’s career: he played in 77 games last summer and totaled four homers, but in 2026 the 22-year-old already has nine dingers. He’s hitting .260/.321/.392 overall, good for a 104 OPS+, and that’s on top of excellent defense, too. The Tigers handed the Yankees their fifth-straight loss, which put New York 1.5 games back of the Rays in the AL East. And Detroit did it thanks in large part to starter Casey Mize, who matched his career-high with 10 strikeouts. Mize wasn’t just missing bats by way of the K, but he also kept New York from making strong contact throughout the game, limiting them to just one hit and baserunner total across seven innings of work. New York got to reliever Drew Sommers for three runs to make this one seem closer than it was for much of its run, but Mize had the Yankees held down, and Detroit would win, 7-3. The W also marked the 1,000th win of manager A.J. Hinch’s career, making him just one of two active managers with four-digit win totals, along with the Reds’ Terry Francona — 430 of those wins have come with Detroit. These White Sox just feel different. At 44-39, Chicago is in first place in the AL Central, and it both got and has stayed there thanks to continually fighting back and winning even when behind — which is not exactly something the last few White Sox teams were known for. Here, Chicago was tied up 2-2 through three innings before both teams had their bats go quiet, but the White Sox saw theirs wake up both first and loud. Maybe the Orioles could have gotten something started sooner, but center fielder Tristan Peters had something to say about that with what had to be a really painful catch in the fourth. In the top of the eighth, shortstop Colson Montgomery got his one hit of the game and made it count, driving in what would prove to be the game-winning run with a double. Chicago did not stop there, however: DH Randal Grichuk drove in Montgomery, then the White Sox put another four on the board in the ninth just to be sure. The White Sox would win, 8-2, powered both by a late offensive surge and a bullpen that combined for 3 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief. Chicago is one game up on the Guardians in the AL Central, with an expected record that matches its actual one. What a first half from these guys so far. Willson Contreras is, understandably, visibly emotional about his native Venezuela and the earthquakes his people suffered last week. He let that emotion out with a swing of the bat on Monday against the Nationals, smashing a three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning to give the Red Sox an early lead over Washington. And he let loose with one incredible bat flip to show how important this was to him. Contreras also exclaimed, “Venezuela!” as he rounded the bases, and explained postgame that he feels like he should be helping back home, but this is all he can do right now, since he also has a duty to his teammates and the Sox. “I wasn’t feeling good the whole day. I was kind of down, sad and I hit a homer,” Contreras told the media postgame. “And I think that of course, I’m helping the team to win, and it’s good. But I think every homer from now on is going to be for the Red Sox and Venezuela.” Boston would end up defeating the Nats, 6-3, with help from fellow Venezuelans Wilyer Abreu, Ceddanne Rafaela and Carlos Narváez, who all scored or drove in runs, as well.