Winning baseball is all Will Smith has ever known since making his MLB debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2019.
The Dodgers have made the postseason in each of Smith’s first seven seasons, which includes three trips to the World Series.
In that time, Smith has appeared in 67 playoff games and logged 247 at-bats. All of that exposure has given the Dodgers’ backstop a sense of normalcy in October.
“Yeah, fortunately I am with the Los Angeles Dodgers,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to be here my whole career was a chance to play in the postseason every year. No team is committed more to winning a World Series each and every year than the Dodgers. That’s what I want to be a part of. I love the challenge and the goal.
“That’s what we try to do every year is win a World Series. And that’s who I am, that’s what I want to be a part of.”
The Dodgers played their first four postseason games without Smith in the lineup. Smith did not appear in the Wild Card round and didn’t make his first start until Game 3 of the National League Division Series due to an ongoing recovery from a hairline fracture in his right hand.
He has started every game behind the plate for the Dodgers since then.
Through the first three rounds of the postseason, Smith hit .286/.375/.286 with two RBI, three walks and four runs scored. He followed that with an RBI single in Game 1 of the World Series, and three more RBI, along with a home run, agains the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2.
Dave Roberts praises Will Smith
Smith’s two-out RBI single gave the Dodgers a lead in the first inning of Game 2, and his home run to the second deck in left field broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning. Max Muncy added a solo homer two batters later.
“Huge relief. (Kevin) Gausman was throwing the baseball really well. We were in between, I thought, offensively with the fastball. When Will got into that 3-2 count, just missed a 3-1 heater, and then they went to the well again, and hit a homer, and there was just complete elation,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the win.
“We felt that the way (Yoshinobu) Yamamoto was throwing, runs were certainly going to be hard to come by. And then when Max backed it up with another homer, just huge relief. And then to build an inning after that was big. But, yeah, that homer kind of a big exhale from the dugout.”
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