by Cary Osborne
The Dodgers’ roughest stretch of the season began with an embarrassing 18–1 loss at Dodger Stadium on July 4.
The one was a second-inning solo home run by Will Smith.
After the Dodgers started the second half on a three-game losing streak, the steady catcher hit two home runs against the Minnesota Twins — one in the fourth and one in the sixth in Los Angeles’ re-entry into the win column.
The Dodgers beat the Twins 5–2 at Dodger Stadium on Monday with four home runs — a two-run blast from Shohei Ohtani in the first inning and a solo home run from Andy Pages in the seventh serving as bookends to Smith’s pair of homers.
The game ended with James Outman catching a Carlos Correa fly ball at the wall in center field. A foot longer and it would have been a game-tying home run.
Instead, it’s an exhale.
“I think everyone’s trying to will a win right now,” Smith said. “It was a rough stretch. We got a win today. We’ll back out tomorrow trying to get another win.”
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Smith, a three-time All-Star and first-time All-Star starter this season, has been one of the Major Leagues’ most valuable players this season and has been a constant for his team.
During the frustrating 2–10 run from July 4-July 20, Smith batted .353 with an OPS north of a thousand.
He is hitting .365 this month. No other Dodger is above .276.
In the best of times this season, Smith has been central as well. He reached base four times on Opening Day in Japan. He batted .450 during the team’s season-opening eight-game winning streak. He hit a pinch-hit walk-off home run to close out a sweep of the Padres on June 18. He later hit a home run and drew a critical ninth-inning walk in a Dodger walk-off win on July 2, giving the Dodgers a six-game winning streak.
Smith is batting a National League-leading .326 with a league-leading .424 on-base percentage.
Smith was also behind the plate guiding the piggyback of Shohei Ohtani and Dustin May on the mound on Monday.
“He’s been huge,” May said of Smith. “He’s definitely been the rock in our lineup, and every time he’s up to bat, you can count on him to get the job done.”
Ohtani was hit harder than he has all season in start №6 — seven hard-hit balls and his first homer allowed this season (a leadoff home run by All-Star Byron Buxton in the first inning). But the right-hander got through three innings allowing just the one run.
He answered the Twins’ hard-hitting with one of his own — a 113.4-mph, 441-foot blast in the first inning.
It was Ohtani’s 35th homer of the year and third straight game with a home run. It’s the second time Ohtani has hit a home run in a game he started on the mound this season.
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May, in a non-traditional role for him, took over in the fourth inning and put up 4 2/3 scoreless innings.
Tanner Scott followed, but he left the game accompanied by a trainer with one out in the ninth inning. Manager Dave Roberts said Scott felt a sting in his forearm, and he will have further testing done after going through some manual testing on Monday night.
“I’m trying not to go down a spiraling thing of what it could be,” Roberts said. “The manual tests were good, so hopefully it’s something that’s more of a scare and then we can kind of put him on ice and get him back.”
Dodgers get back into the win column with some Will power was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.