Dodgers' attempts to fix 'misunderstanding' with Max Muncy clearly aren't working

In another life, maybe the 361-foot fly ball that Max Muncy hit to center field on Tuesday night against the Cubs would've gone out of the park. Miguel Amaya's bottom of the ninth, game-tying homer that same night traveled to basically the same place as Muncy's, but it had just that much extra carry that dropped it in the netting above the wall. It was a homer in exactly one ballpark, but it still made all the difference for Chicago.

Muncy, who is still waiting for his first homer of the season through 22 games, similarly wouldn't have cared whether or not it would've been an out in any other ballpark. He's batting .181 with a .536 OPS and has dropped from fifth to seventh in the Dodgers' order, and maybe he needs something — a single spark to show signs of life — to get him back to looking like his usual self.

Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates recently said of Muncy's struggles, "Max has natural loft in his swing. A lot of lefties do. So I think he doesn't need to artificially try to elevate the baseball. For him, trying to think more line drive is just going to keep him above the ball longer."

However, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic noted that it's "caused Muncy to develop bad habits," to which the hitter acknowledged, "That was causing me to be just not on time with any single pitch that was thrown. It was kind of just a misunderstanding of how my body works in terms of my swing."

Max Muncy knows exactly what he's doing wrong, but the Dodgers haven't been able to find a solution

There have been some signs that Muncy's adjustments are doing something. He was hitting balls harder against the Rangers and picked up three hits in that series, and at least he walked once against the Cubs on Tuesday despite his growing strikeout rate (35.7%) and shrinking walk rate (11.9%).

Muncy also acknowledged that he made adjustments to the mental side of his game as well, and that could be a big factor in what's going on with him so far. He has just four RBI this season, is still waiting on that first homer, and has been benched a few times because of this slump.

This isn't to say that everything would be magically solved if Muncy hits that first homer or has a multi-RBI day, but it would at least give him a little boost of confidence and show that the changes the Dodgers are trying to walk him through are actually going to stick.