Seventeen days later, the Dodgers finally know what’s wrong with Will Smith’s hand.
On Saturday, ahead of a 7-5 win against the San Francisco Giants, manager Dave Roberts announced that Smith has a hairline fracture in his right hand and is doubtful to return before the end of the regular season.
The Dodgers are “hopeful” of having Smith available for the postseason, Roberts said, but whether he will be ready for the very start of the playoffs — which will likely be Sept. 30 — remains “up in the air.”
In a week that has seen the Dodgers now win four straight games (making them 10-3 in their last 13) and lower their magic number to clinch the National League West to three, the latest development in Smith’s hand saga has been the only dark cloud that won’t go away.
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A three-time All-Star catcher who led the National League in batting average in the first half of the season before slumping through August, Smith first got hurt when a foul ball hit his dangling throwing hand behind the plate on Sept. 3 in Pittsburgh.
After missing the Dodgers’ next five games, he returned to the starting lineup on Sept. 9 against the Colorado Rockies, and doubled in his first at-bat. However, the 30-year-old was a late scratch from the lineup the next day after his hand swelled up, and was placed on the injured list last weekend in San Francisco.
Initially, both an X-ray and an MRI on Smith’s hand came back clean, which is why the Dodgers allowed him to return to action as soon as they did. But his injury lingered and the Dodgers sent him back for another MRI at the end of this past week.
This time, the scan showed what both Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman described as a “small” fracture.
“It sounds like from the doctors that it’s so small and in such a small part of the hand that it didn’t show up initially but did on the subsequent [scan],” Friedman said. “They seem to say [that] is common. I haven’t seen it, but I also haven’t seen a broken bone in that area very often. It makes sense why it was slow to rebound. I’m glad we have clarity on it. We’re going to do everything we can to strengthen and heal and get it back.”
To this point, the Dodgers have managed without Smith, who was batting .296 with 17 home runs and 61 RBIs. In the 15 games he has missed since getting hurt, the team is 9-6 and averaging more than five runs per game.
A big reason why: The emergence of journeyman replacement Ben Rortvedt, a minor-league addition at the trade deadline who has come to the majors and produced capably as a fill-in for Smith and backup catcher Dalton Rushing (who missed 10 days this month after fouling a ball off his leg).
After joining the team as a career .186 hitter in four MLB seasons, Rortvedt is batting .270 in 14 games as a Dodger with two doubles and three sacrifice bunts. Dodgers pitchers also had a 2.74 ERA with him behind the plate entering Saturday.
That latter number jumped early on Saturday, when Tyler Glasnow labored through a four-run, 43-pitch first inning that featured four hits and three walks. However, the battery settled down, with Glasnow completing the fifth inning without further damage, and allowing a surging offense to take control.
Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers in the first inning against the Giants on Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“It was one of those games where I didn’t really have anything,” Glasnow said. “I just went back in and was like, just try to compete as hard as I can. It ended up kind of getting back online.”
The Dodgers (88-67) got a two-run home run from Max Muncy in the bottom of the first. They tied the game in the fourth when Michael Conforto hit a solo home run (one of his three hits on the night) and Freddie Freeman added an RBI single.
Slumping utilityman Tommy Edman snapped a five-for-26 rut since returning from an ankle injury in the fifth, clanging a go-ahead home run off the left-field foul pole.
Shohei Ohtani helped extend the lead in the sixth, belting his 53rd home run of the season (and fourth in the last five games) to tie Kyle Schwarber for the NL lead.
“Our guys are playing playoff-caliber baseball,” Roberts said. “You can just see the intensity each pitch, each play.”
Max Muncy runs the bases after hitting a two-run homer off San Francisco Giants pitcher Kai-Wei Teng in the first inning Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, right, celebrates with Max Muncy after scoring in the fourth inning against the Giants on Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Even with Rushing healthy again, Roberts said Rortvedt likely will get the “lion’s share” of playing time in Smith’s absence — thanks largely to the way Rortvedt has handled the staff, and how Rushing has struggled with both his defense and his bat in a difficult rookie season.
“The way he’s helped lead our pitching staff has been awesome,” Friedman said of Rortvedt, who was acquired from Tampa Bay in a three-team trade a day before the deadline. “He really has that servant leadership mentality behind the plate, which has really ingratiated himself with a lot of our pitchers.”
Still, to be at top form, the Dodgers will need Smith in the middle of the batting order.
Friedman said Smith will keep getting treatment on his hand until “he gets to a point where he doesn’t have symptoms.” Then, he will go for follow-up X-rays to determine when he will be able to play.
“We’re optimistic that it’s going to heal quickly, but we’re at the mercy of how quickly that happens,” Friedman said. “We don’t really know, but we’re optimistic it’ll be pretty fast.”
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Graterol not expected back
It’s not much of a surprise at this point, but the Dodgers are not expecting reliever Brusdar Graterol to return this season.
Graterol has not pitched this year after an offseason shoulder surgery, and his recovery “hasn’t gone as smoothly as he would like, as we would like,” Friedman said.
“It’s been hard to kind of ramp up the volume that he would need to get back. My expectation is he will not be back this year.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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