Dodgers’ Max Muncy has big impact, drives in 5 runs in return

CHICAGO — One game might do more for Max Muncy’s psyche – er, elbow – than any number of rehab games in Triple-A could.

Muncy drove in five runs with a double and a home run as the Dodgers scored 10 times in the fifth and sixth innings, and they needed every bit of it to beat the Chicago White Sox, 11-9, Thursday afternoon.

Coming into the game, the Dodgers’ offense had slipped into neutral. While losing six of their previous nine games following that trip, they had hit just .228 as a team – even worse with runners in scoring position (.171) – and averaged 3½ runs per game.

For four innings, it looked like more of the same. The Dodgers managed just two hits and a walk against White Sox starter Dylan Cease and fell behind 4-0 when Tyler Anderson’s scoreless streak came to a crashing halt.

The White Sox ended it at 28 scoreless innings when Josh Harrison led off the third inning with a triple and scored on a ground out. Anderson couldn’t retire any of the four batters he faced in the fourth inning, giving up two walks, a single and a double before leaving the game with the bases loaded and no outs.

Brusdar Graterol replaced Anderson and promptly hit Adam Engel with his first pitch, forcing in a run. A sacrifice fly scored another before Graterol closed out the inning.

But things unraveled on Cease in the fifth inning with White Sox manager Tony La Russa leaving the 26-year-old right-hander in to face nine batters and throw 45 pitches thanks to an error that extended the inning and made all six runs unearned.

Cody Bellinger started it with an accidental single against the shift. Gavin Lux walked to put two runners on with one out. Cease got Austin Barnes to bounce a ground ball to third baseman Jake Burger – but Burger booted it for an error.

Mookie Betts struck out – what would have been the final out if Burger had made his play – and then the dam burst.

Freddie Freeman doubled in two runs. Trea Turner beat out an infield single to drive in another. Freshly back from his brief time in Oklahoma City, Muncy doubled into the left-center field gap to drive in two more and give the Dodgers the lead.

After Cease walked Will Smith, La Russa finally brought in a reliever, Matt Foster. That didn’t work well either. He walked Justin Turner then threw a wild pitch that brought in the sixth run of the inning.

La Russa’s sixth-inning move will not be added to his Hall of Fame plaque either.

Lux led off with an infield single (one of his four hits in the game), moved up on a ground out then scored on a two-out RBI single by Freeman (his third hit in the game after a 9-for-49 lull).