Will Smith’s return hasn’t been a clean, instant jolt for the Dodgers at the plate, but Dave Roberts is making it clear the value goes well beyond the box score.
After nearly three months away with neck inflammation, the three-time All-Star is back with Los Angeles, and Roberts said the team can lean on him for exactly the things that matter most in October baseball: quality at-bats, steady production, and a calm presence behind the plate.
“Will is just very consistent, dependable,” Roberts said. “I know he’s taking really good at-bats.
He hit some balls to the warning track. Last night, pinch-hit sac fly, and then tonight, got a hanging breaking ball with a good at-bat.
Seven, eight pitches, got a breaking ball up, hits a homer, so that was really good to see.
“But with Will, it’s just great having him in there because you know you can count on the at-bat quality, and obviously, having him behind the plate, he’s been good. I’ll have him down tomorrow.
Give him tomorrow and then the off day, and then he’ll play two out of three at Miami. But yeah, just getting him back has been great.”
Roberts has been talking about Smith in the kind of terms teams usually reserve for their most trusted players. He previously called him “crucial” to the Dodgers’ postseason outlook and said the club was glad to have him back when active rosters expanded at the start of September.
“The experience, the calmness in the box, the managing of the pitching staff, all that stuff is crucial,” Roberts said of Smith’s importance.
The Dodgers needed him, too. Catching depth had thinned out with Dalton Rushing also injured, forcing Los Angeles to patch things together with Eliezer Alfonzo, Hunter Feduccia, Chuckie Robinson and Ben Rortvedt before Smith came off the 60-day injured list.
Smith’s absence turned out to be longer than expected. When the neck issue first surfaced, he was believed to be out only for a game or two, but an inflamed disc kept him sidelined much longer than the Dodgers initially thought. The 31-year-old said it took time before he was pain-free, though he still planned to get back on the field this season even if the neck never felt completely right.
“Yeah, a little bit,” Smith recently said when asked if he ever became worried about how long it took his neck to improve. “It was kind of the who knows how long it’s going to take?
But there was going to be a point at some point that I was going to be fed up and just kind of deal with it. So yeah.”
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