by Cary Osborne
When looking at this Dodger team on Opening Day, there were some obvious names one could have predicted as All-Star candidates for down the road.
Will Smith and Teoscar Hernández were two of them.
Andy Pages — probably not.
Smith and Pages — 78 games into the season — are two of the best players at their position in the National League. Hernández is one of the top outfield power bats in the NL.
Smith and Pages both hit solo home runs midgame for the Dodgers on Saturday. Teoscar Hernández added a solo home run in the ninth inning in the Dodgers’ 7–3 loss.
Pages swung first — a blast to left field off Washington starting pitcher Jake Irvin that cut the Nationals’ lead to 2–1 in the fifth inning.
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Pages ranks in the top six among NL outfielders in batting average (.292, second) RBI (52, third) hits (81, tied for third), home runs (16, tied for fourth), slugging (.516, fifth), OPS (.847, sixth) and total bases (143, sixth).
The second-year player came into the game ninth among all NL players with a 2.9 fWAR (Fangraphs wins above replacement) and tied for 10th with a 2.9 bWAR (Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement).
Smith came in ranked tied for fifth in bWAR (3.1) and eighth in fWAR (3.1) among all National League players. He leads all National League catchers.
His homer in the sixth inning, cut the Nationals’ lead to 3–2 at the time.
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He leads all National Leaguers in batting average (.328), on-base percentage (.425) and his .960 OPS ranks second in the NL to Shohei Ohtani.
A Dodger catcher hasn’t led the NL in batting average at the All-Star Break since Mike Piazza in 1996 with a .363 average.
The Dodgers are still 19 games away from the All-Star Break, but Smith has been over .300 all season. His lowest batting average in 2025 was his .303 mark on May 5. Since that time, he is hitting .348.
Hernández ranks fourth among NL outfielders with 51 RBI and tied for seventh with 14 homers. He is sixth with a .498 slugging percentage.
His solo homer was the seventh of the night from both teams. Dodger pitching allowed five Nationals homers.
Dodger All-Star candidates go long, but it’s a long night was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.