The Los Angeles Dodgers’ injury report has become familiar enough that you can almost recite it. Mookie Betts is out with an oblique strain. Blake Snell is still working back from shoulder fatigue. Tommy Edman is dealing with an ankle issue. Edwin Diaz, Gavin Stone, Landon Knack, and Brusdar Graterol are all at various stages of their returns. The injury list reads like a fantasy baseball nightmare, and after a hot start, the Dodgers have settled into more ordinary form, sitting at 20–11 and looking more workmanlike than dominant. How a team absorbs that level of attrition and continues to bank wins, even while playing closer to average baseball of late, is still worth examining, because the explanation goes beyond simple roster depth.
In any winning organization managing a run of injuries, two processes operate simultaneously. The first is the visible one: the depth-chart shuffling, the minor league call-ups, and the front-office maneuvering that keep the active roster viable. The second is largely invisible: the individual recovery systems that allow the healthy players to stay on the field and perform at a level that cushions the impact of who is missing. The Dodgers’ ability to stay afloat through an uneven stretch is a product of both forces. This story is about the latter.
Recovery Starts with Nutrition
At the foundation of any serious recovery model is nutrition. Muscle tissue that is broken down over the course of a game, whether from a catcher enduring nine innings in a squat or a starting pitcher working through a 100-pitch outing, requires adequate protein intake to repair and rebuild. For players operating on a 162-game calendar, a fast-absorbing whey protein source with a leucine-rich amino acid profile becomes a critical tool in the postgame window, which often falls late at night after a three-hour game. Consistently hitting that target is one of the quiet separators between players who remain structurally sound and those who accumulate damage that eventually leads to a stint on the injured list.
Timing is as consequential as total intake. Sports science research routinely identifies the 30 to 45 minute period following exercise as the window in which muscle tissue is most receptive to amino acids and repair processes are most actively initiated. A player who finishes a game around 10 p.m. and waits until midnight to eat has effectively missed that window. The players who follow a defined protocol, a whey protein shake waiting at their locker, and a routine that operates independent of appetite or postgame logistics are the ones building durability, not simply enduring the schedule.
This is not a marginal edge. A starting pitcher who recovers more efficiently between outings can sustain another high-stress start in a rotation cycle without breaking down. A catcher who manages lower-body fatigue through consistent nutritional support can remain sharper behind the plate in September, when every pitch matters. A middle infielder who restores glycogen and amino acids before sleep is more likely to wake up ready to move, not stiff and depleted. These are the hidden margins that underpin postseason pushes, and they remain largely unseen until a roster still has enough functional bodies to compete while others are fading.
Will Smith’s Home Recovery Setup
In the wake of the Dodgers 2025 World Series title, catcher Will Smith spoke publicly about the recovery routine he believes keeps him sharp over a full season. With the 2026 Dodgers already stretched thin, something any cursory look at the injury list makes clear, what individual players do away from the stadium has become even more consequential. Smith uses an infrared sauna at home before heading to the ballpark each day, describing it as central to how he primes his body for the demands ahead. When he suffered a hand fracture in early September last year, he credited that routine, along with standard medical treatment, with accelerating his return.
The key detail is timing: Smith is stepping into the sauna before games, not just after them. Conventional thinking around heat therapy in sports frames it as a post-activity recovery tool, something you do to aid repair once the work is done. Smith’s approach is a preparation protocol that uses heat to raise core temperature, loosen the posterior chain, and boost circulation before his body is asked to perform. For a catcher spending three hours in a crouch and then exploding laterally on stolen base attempts and blocks in the dirt, that pre-activation can deliver direct mechanical benefits. It is a nuanced application that looks less like following a generic recommendation and more like the product of years of experimentation.
The Science Behind Heat and Recovery
Smith’s approach is supported in the sports science literature. Studies that examined infrared sauna use in athletes following high-intensity efforts found reductions in neuromuscular fatigue and perceived soreness compared with passive rest. Researchers pointed to the activation of heat shock proteins, molecules that assist cellular repair in the wake of physical stress, as a key mechanism. Importantly, infrared heat exposure did not appear to blunt the adaptive response that underpins performance gains, a critical point over a long season where maintaining conditioning is as important as managing soreness.
Parallel work on protein intake across team sports has shown that athletes who consume at least 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day tend to better preserve strength and power output during intense training blocks. Those same analyses consistently identify the post-exercise window as the highest-priority time for intake. For players who face back-to-back games with no true recovery day, making a habit of postgame whey protein or comparable options in that window is the most accessible, high-return intervention available without altering training volume or on-field workload.
Taken together, the research points toward a recovery architecture built on two complementary inputs: nutritional support that provides the raw materials for tissue repair, and thermal support that optimizes the physiological conditions under which that repair occurs. Neither replaces the other. A player who eats well but fails to manage inflammation and circulation is leaving potential recovery gains unused. A player who is committed to heat therapy but under-fueling on protein is creating favorable conditions for a process that lacks the necessary substrate. The combination is where the benefits compound.
A 162-Game Season is a Recovery Problem
Baseball imposes physical demands that few other sports replicate. Pitchers log hundreds of high-velocity throws from February through October. Catchers squat through three-hour games night after night. Position players work through day games after night games, cross-country travel, and a calendar that runs almost daily for seven months. The cumulative load is impossible to manage without a deliberate recovery system that absorbs it in real time.
What makes Major League Baseball particularly unforgiving is the lack of built-in reset points. The NBA features back-to-backs but also several-day gaps. The NFL offers a full week between games. In baseball, players are expected to perform at a high level for months on end, with the physical cost of each game rolling directly into the next. The athletes who arrive in September with their bodies intact are rarely just the most naturally gifted. They are the ones who treat every hour away from the field as part of their preparation for the next first pitch.
The protocol Smith uses was once accessible only within professional facilities. Increasingly, players are recreating that environment at home, allowing them to run their recovery systems daily rather than only during team time. Those who invest in that infrastructure are not dabbling in something exotic. They are applying well-established principles consistently in the narrow windows that the schedule permits.
What it Means for Dodger Fans
You do not need a major league contract to apply a version of the same framework. On the nutritional side, a reliable whey protein or similar high-quality source taken within roughly 45 minutes of physical activity covers the most critical repair window, whether you play competitive amateur baseball, run regularly, or train in the gym a few times per week. On the thermal side, home infrared units now offer the same type of heat exposure used in professional environments, without requiring access to a team facility.
Research across active populations commonly points to two or three infrared sessions per week, each around 15 to 20 minutes, as a range associated with meaningful recovery benefits. Used on rest days or in the evening after lighter activity, those sessions can enhance circulation, reduce lingering soreness from prior workloads, and set the stage for better sleep, arguably the single most powerful recovery tool available at any level of sport.
The Dodgers are 20–11 with a significant portion of their expected pitching staff unavailable and key position players still working their way back. They have not been overwhelming in the standings over the past couple of weeks, but they have avoided the kind of slide that often follows a rash of injuries. That steadiness is not a fluke, and it is not solely the product of smart roster construction. It is the visible outcome of an organization and a clubhouse that treats recovery as an active discipline, not a passive pause between games. The methods behind that system are not restricted to professionals. They are available to anyone who is willing to approach the hours after their own games or workouts with the same seriousness they bring to the competition itself.
