Make California Post a Preferred Source MILWAUKEE –– Shohei Ohtani might be absorbing much of the negative attention around the Dodgers lately.
But it’s catcher Will Smith who has been the team’s biggest offensive problem so far this postseason.
In a 2–1 loss to the Brewers in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday night, the perennial All-Star’s recent struggles finally came into sharper, harsher focus.
He went hitless for the fourth time in five games in these playoffs. He bounced into a double play –– the first of three for the Dodgers on the night –– that killed a potential first-inning rally against Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski.
On the bright side, he drew a walk and didn’t strike out (something he had done seven times in the last three games).
However, the veteran slugger is now a glaring 1-for-19 in this year’s playoffs –– prompting manager Dave Roberts to be asked whether the 31-year-old needs to be dropped from the No. 3 spot of the batting order.
“It’s a fair question,” Roberts acknowledged. “But right now, I still like him at the top of the order.”
The numbers, even in a small postseason sample, tell a different story to this point, with Teoscar Hernández and maybe even Andy Pages playing like better options for such a crucial part of the lineup.
Hernández had two hits Sunday, raising his postseason average to .250. Pages drove in the Dodgers’ only run, and is now 5-for-11 with three RBIs in the last three games.
Smith, meanwhile, seems to have lost the swing that helped him hit .354 over his last 16 regular seasons, following a three-month absence earlier this summer with a neck injury.
He was not in the Dodgers’ clubhouse postgame during the period that was open to reporters.
“He’s not swinging the bat well,” Roberts acknowledged. “It’s just, it’s hard because the body of work. He just has that knack to get a hit –– to get a big hit.”
Indeed, no one (other than maybe Miguel Rojas) had a bigger hit for the Dodgers last October, when Smith belted a go-ahead, championship-deciding home run in extra innings of Game 7 of the World Series.
The moment cemented his status as a franchise legend. It affirmed his reputation as one of the league’s most overlooked star hitters.
It’s part of the reason why the Dodgers aren’t even considering potentially taking him out of the lineup now, either.
“That’s just not going to happen,” Roberts said definitively while batting away that possibility.
A drop in the batting order, on the other hand, could (and probably should) be under consideration. In what figures to be a low-scoring, tightly contested NLCS, the team can only afford a black hole from the three-spot for so much longer.
And five games in, the gravity of his slump is weighing on the team.
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