New York Mets

Max Muncy’s 2025 season has been nothing if not enigmatic.

But lately, after a woeful opening month on both sides of the ball, the good (his bat) has been outweighing the bad (his glove).

In the Dodgers’ 6-5 win against the New York Mets on Tuesday, such a duality came into plain view.

In the first inning, Muncy punctuated a four-run ambush of Mets starter Tylor Megill with a two-run home run deep to right field. In the fifth, he committed a costly error at third base that fueled New York’s go-ahead two-run rally. Yet, in the ninth, the veteran slugger capitalized upon his chance for redemption, clobbering his second long ball of the night to tie the score — and set up Freddie Freeman for a walk-off double (with a lot of help from Brandon Nimmo’s poor outfield defense) in the bottom of the 10th.

After an ice-cold opening month with the bat, Muncy has caught fire over his last 22 games, batting .314 with eight home runs (including six in the last seven games), 28 RBIs, 14 walks and only 10 strikeouts.

His defense remains a glaring weak spot, exposed repeatedly in key situations during the Dodgers’ slog through May and the opening days of June.

But for now, his production at the plate is giving him a long leash to work through such issues.

Without his offense Tuesday, the Dodgers likely would’ve lost their third straight game.

When Muncy came up as the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers hadn’t scored since his first home run eight innings prior.

Megill had found his footing, retiring 16 of his final 17 batters over a six-inning start. The Dodgers had wasted a golden opportunity to come back in the eighth, coming up empty even after getting the go-ahead runs on second and third base with no outs.

Muncy, however, extended the game with one swing, connecting on an elevated fastball for a no-doubt missile that traveled 408 feet. He flipped his bat as he left the box. He rounded the bases with a steady, confident gait.

An inning later, after Tanner Scott broke out of his recent struggles by holding the Mets scoreless in the top of the 10th, Freeman walked it off on a fly ball that Nimmo let fall at the warning track in left, getting all turned around as the ball came barreling toward the earth to let automatic runner Tommy Edman score with ease.

NEW YORK — It had been more than two weeks since Juan Soto, the only man in baseball with a richer contract than Shohei Ohtani, had recorded an extra-base hit for the New York Mets.

In the bottom of the fourth inning Saturday night at Citi Field, however, Dodgers pitcher Tony Gonsolin provided him the perfect opportunity to get back on track.

After a solid opening three innings for Gonsolin, who was making an all-important start for the Dodgers a night after their 13-inning marathon victory in the series opener, the right-hander had made a mess for himself in the fourth.

With two outs, he issued back-to-back four-pitch walks to load the bases. The Dodgers’ early one-run lead then disappeared when Starling Marte reached on a half-swing infield single.

That brought up Soto, who had underperformed through much of his first two months in Queens after signing a $765-million mega-contract with the Mets. Gonsolin got ahead 1-and-2 in the count, before narrowly missing with a slider. He tried to come back with his trademark splitter. But Soto was all over it, crushing a two-run double that proved to be the decisive blow in New York’s 5-2 victory over the Dodgers.

“At the outset, I was pretty optimistic, getting a 2-0 lead,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And then there was that [fourth inning] where he sort of lost command, had two outs and the back-to-back walks. … And obviously the big hit from Soto with two outs. He just couldn’t kind of limit damage right there.”

In what likely will be a preview of what’s to come for the Dodgers (32-20) over a grueling portion of their schedule in the next month, the team’s fate Saturday was almost entirely reliant upon the performance of their starter.

On Friday night, their already overworked bullpen had been gassed again by their extra-inning gantlet. And though they won that game, and freshened up their pitching staff by calling up Bobby Miller on Saturday for some extra length, Roberts had his hands tied as Gonsolin started to lose command.

Juan Soto runs to first base after hitting a two-run double in the fourth inning Saturday against the Dodgers.

(Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)

Over his first three innings against the Mets (31-21), Gonsolin had been fine, giving up one run in a two-out rally in the second by skirting more danger in the third by dialing up an inning-ending double-play with runners on the corners.

The fourth was a different story.

Luis Torrens led with a single. Tyrone Taylor clobbered a fly ball that seemed like a no-doubter off the bat before dying in a stiff breeze at the left-field warning track. Then, Gonsolin became erratic, throwing eight consecutive balls to Brett Baty and Francisco Lindor to load the bases for the heart of the Mets’ order.

“Very upset with the walks,” Gonsolin said. “Don’t walk those guys, potentially that inning looks a lot different. Just need to attack guys.”

Maybe on a night the Dodgers’ bullpen was fresh, Roberts could have considered summoning a lefty to face Soto once Gonsolin began floundering. But after using seven of his eight relievers the previous night, he had no choice but to leave Gonsolin in as the four-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger came to the plate.

Five pitches later, Soto changed the game — sending Citi Field into euphoria with his go-ahead double that banged high off the wall in right center, the inning only ending when Marte was thrown out at home trying to score from first as the trail runner.

“Thought I executed a slider really well there,” Gonsolin said of a two-strike offering that Soto didn’t bite on. “He’s got a really good eye. Barely missed.

“Then yeah, the splitter, thought it was a solid one, just elevated it. And he didn’t miss it.”

Gonsolin did return to the mound and completed the fifth, saving at least one inning that otherwise would have fallen upon the Dodgers’ bullpen. Miller also contributed two innings at the end, giving up one run in the eighth and getting out of a bases-loaded jam.

But on the other side, Mets starter David Peterson had no trouble going deep, using sharp command with his sinker, seven strikeouts and three double plays to get through 7 ⅔ innings of two-run ball.

“There wasn’t much offensive energy tonight, as far as how we were swinging, the at-bats we were taking,” Roberts said. “So to try to chase and use leverage guys in a down game, it just didn’t make any sense for me.”

So goes things for the Dodgers right now; ever mindful of their MLB-leading bullpen workload, and needing better production from their starters than what Gonsolin provided.

NEW YORK — The upcoming month was already going to be tough for the Dodgers.

A rainy Friday night in Queens made it that much tougher.

In the fourth game of a 29-game stretch against playoff-contending teams, the Dodgers beat the New York Mets in a marathon contest at Citi Field, overcoming a three-run ninth-inning blown save from closer Tanner Scott by prevailing 7-5 in the 13th inning.

But, their already shorthanded pitching staff endured more unexpected obstacles in the process. A one-hour, 38-minute rain delay in the top of the third limited starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw to just two innings. A seemingly never-ending game forced their overworked bullpen to combine for 11 more innings in which every reliever was used except one.

Navigating this difficult portion of the schedule — which began in earnest with a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks this week — will be a test for a Dodgers pitching staff missing three of its five opening-day rotation members and many other important arms in the bullpen.

Because of that, manager Dave Roberts has emphasized in recent days the need to push his starters to take down as many innings as possible.

On Friday, Kershaw seemed to be on his way to a decent start, pitching two scoreless innings in which his only baserunner reached via a walk that was quickly erased by a double play.

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw delivers in the second inning Friday against the Mets.

(Pamela Smith / Associated Press)

But then, with the Dodgers mounting a rally in the top of the third, the New York skies opened up for a late May downpour. For the next 98 minutes, fans scattered for shelter and watched the Knicks’ playoff game on the stadium scoreboard. Back in the visiting clubhouse, Roberts watched the clock tick and tick and tick, eventually to the point where keeping Kershaw in was no longer a viable option.

By the end of the night, that was the least of the Dodgers’ problems.

Despite holding a 5-2 lead after getting three innings of two-run ball from Matt Sauer, and three scoreless innings from Ben Casparius, Scott couldn’t get the game across the finish line.

Starling Marte led with a single. Pete Alonso drew a one-out walk. Jeff McNeil got them both home on a triple hit just high enough to evade a leaping Freddie Freeman at first base. Tyrone Taylor then completed Scott’s fourth blown save in 14 opportunities with an RBI single to left.

Somehow, the Dodgers (32-19) still managed to prevail.

Alex Vesia got the game to extras, stranding two runners aboard to end the ninth. Both teams then traded wasted opportunities from there, failing to score their automatic runners in the 10th (when the Dodgers had the bases loaded with no outs), the 11th (when Anthony Banda and Luis García combined to escape a bases-loaded threat) and the 12th (when the Dodgers turned an inning-ending double play while employing a five-man infield).

Finally, Teoscar Hernández put the Dodgers back in front in the 13th, hitting a leadoff RBI double before scoring on Andy Pages’ sacrifice fly.

García closed it out in the bottom half of the inning, completing a 2 ⅓ scoreless inning appearance just minutes shy of 1 a.m. local time.

It was a hard-fought win, but one that could come with future consequences for a pitching staff that was already running on fumes.

Grounds crew members cover the field during a rain delay at Citi Field on Friday night.

(Pamela Smith / Associated Press)