MILWAUKEE (AP) — Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Max Muncy is cautiously optimistic that he avoided a serious injury after a pitch hit him in the right wrist Friday night against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said initial X-rays were negative after Muncy left the game in the eighth inning. Roberts said Muncy still is expected to miss the rest of the Dodgers' three-game series in Milwaukee.
“I’m not feeling great right now, but it's a relief," Muncy said after the Dodgers' 5-1 loss. “We've just got to monitor the next couple of days. Typically, especially in that area, the X-rays never come back positive immediately. It kind of forms a little bit.”
Muncy was wearing some padding around his wrist when he got hit by a 95.5-mph sinker from Aaron Ashby. Muncy could be heard yelling in pain on the game telecast as soon as the pitch hit him.
“I'm pretty sure it hit half my wrist pad and half my wrist. … That’s kind of what I was feeling,” Muncy said. “Me deciding to wear that wrist guard the last couple of years might have saved my wrist, at least tonight.”
The 35-year-old Muncy is accustomed to dealing with these types of situations. Muncy said pitches have hit each of his wrists during his career. He missed time with a right wrist fracture after getting hit by a pitch in 2019.
“I’ve been hit in that spot before and I've broken that spot before,” Muncy said. “The biggest thing I always took with me from that was just the nauseous feeling you get, and I didn't quite have that tonight. That's why I'm feeling optimistic about it.”
Muncy is batting .258 with a .363 on-base percentage, .515 slugging percentage, 12 homers and 19 RBIs in 48 games this season.
He has homered 221 times since joining the Dodgers in 2018. The only players who have more career homers as Los Angeles Dodgers are Eric Karros (270) and Ron Cey (228).
Santiago Espinal pinch-ran for Muncy in the eighth inning and will fill in for him at third base Saturday. The Dodgers are hopeful that Muncy's absence from the lineup won't last longer than a couple of days.
“I think it got enough of that pad to protect it," Roberts said. “He’ll be down for the next couple of days just to make sure we get that swelling out, but I think right now we're breathing a sigh of relief.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
Los Angeles Dodgers' Max Muncy gestures after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels, Friday, May 15, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
One of the teenagers who killed three people at a San Diego mosque this week was flagged to law enforcement last year for exhibiting alarming behavior and idolizing Nazis, prompting police to confiscate his father's guns, according to court records.
The officers who conducted a welfare check at the home of Caleb Vazquez wrote that he was “involved in suspicious behavior idolizing nazis and mass shooters,” and obtained a court order on Jan. 29, 2025, to remove 26 guns under a 2014 California law allowing the confiscation of firearms from people considered dangerous.
Vazquez's father initially denied police entry into his home when they requested to see how he was storing his weapons.
Vazquez’s parents had voluntarily removed the guns from the house and placed them in a secure storage facility days earlier, according to an affidavit signed by Marco Vazquez, the father.
Authorities have said Vazquez, 18, met Cain Clark, 17, online, where they both were radicalized. Police haven't shared more details about how they knew each other, or specified whose weapons were used in the shooting.
Cain Clark’s mother told law enforcement that weapons were missing from her home on Monday, kicking off an hourslong search for the teens before they committed the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego and then killed themselves, police said.
Court filings show Vazquez decided to “secure all sharp knives in the home” and removed from the house the firearms that they had previously kept in a secure gun safe into an outside storage facility. The affidavit also mentions unspecified serious allegations against their son, who was also previously committed to an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. The court filings, first reported by The New York Times, didn't say what he was admitted for.
The Vazquez family said in a statement released Thursday that Caleb Vazquez was on the autism spectrum and had grown to resent parts of his identity — but didn’t specify what aspects were challenging to him.
“Coming from a diverse family that not only includes immigrants but Muslims as well, we always taught the importance of acceptance, compassion, and love for one another. We are proud of the different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, and religions within our family and community,” their statement said.
“We believe this, combined with exposure to hateful rhetoric, extremist content, and propaganda spread across parts of the internet, social media, and other online platforms, contributed to his descent into radicalized ideologies and violent beliefs,” said their statement, released through their attorney Colin Rudolph.
They encouraged him to seek help and he spent time in rehabilitation centers, the statement said. Vazquez's parents did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment from The Associated Press. An attorney who represented Vazquez's parents when their guns were confiscated also didn't immediately respond to calls.
In writings by Vazquez and Clark that expressed white supremacist views, Vazquez wrote of having “some mental health issues” and being rejected by women. They suggest both teenagers idolized previous shooters who have died while carrying out mass shootings. The writings expressed hatred toward Jewish people, Muslims, Black people and a range of other groups.
Vazquez left the San Diego Unified School District in June 2018 after attending Washington Elementary up until the 5th grade, district spokesperson James Canning told The Associated Press. It’s unclear where he went to school after that.
Clark was enrolled in a virtual high school in the district, Canning said.
Police began searching for the teens on Monday after Clark's mother called to say her son was suicidal and ran away. She told them he was dressed in camouflage, had taken multiple weapons from the home, and was with an acquaintance, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said earlier this week.
Officers were still interviewing the mother about places the teens might be when the shooting began at the county's largest mosque.
Vazquez's father said in a 2025 court statement that his family made a concerted effort to steer Caleb Vazquez back onto the right track. He said when they locked away their weapons, they were in communication with his school, were monitoring his social media presence closely and he was in therapy twice a week.
“We observe all of his online activities, who he talks to, what he talks about, and who he is friends with,” Marco Vazquez wrote, emphasizing that he didn't support his son's ideology.
Some experts say it's increasingly difficult to help people drawn to the kind of radicalism Vazquez and Clark expressed.
Samira Benz works for the Violence Prevention Network, which conducts interventions when people are radicalized into believing in violent extremism. Benz said the work has become increasingly complicated as the internet blurs ideologies and creates niche, meme-based languages that can be fleeting and hard to decipher.
“Even if a parent is looking at the phone of their child, they don’t necessarily see something bad is going on,” Benz said.
Associated Press writers Julie Watson and Javier Arciga in San Diego contributed.
People embrace outside the security office of the Islamic Center of San Diego, a day after a shooting, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Two people pray during a vigil, the day after a shooting, outside of the Islamic Center of San Diego, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Candles with victims names are placed outside the Islamic Center of San Diego in the aftermath of a shooting on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Ty Oneil)
