NEW YORK — Now, the calls are more one-sided. When Max Muncy is on the phone with his parents, Lee and Midge, he is not fretting about much, and they cannot stop gushing about what they keep seeing him do.



Since Muncy debuted as an injury-replacement Dodger on April 17, he has been the fifth-best hitter in Major League Baseball, according to one advanced metric, wRC+. The four ahead of him: Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and José Ramírez. In terms of isolated power, only Betts has been better. In terms of sheer improbability, no one ranks higher.



On April 17, 2017, Muncy was 26 and unemployed, working out with his father at his old high school, waiting for a way back into baseball after the Oakland Athletics released him. So, to see it in person over the weekend in Queens, to see the homers continue, resembled fantasy more than it did reality.



“First, I was just happy he got a call-up,” Lee Muncy said Sunday while...