LOS ANGELES -- All week long, the question surrounding Will Smith was whether he was just one good swing away from turning the corner. On Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, that swing finally arrived -- even if it came on a day when his mind had every reason to be elsewhere.
Hours before taking the field for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, Smith’s wife, Cara, announced on social media that the couple had welcomed their third daughter, Carter -- making this their third child born in October.
The joyous arrival came in the middle of a brutal 1-for-25 postseason stretch for the Dodgers’ catcher. Yet when Smith stepped into the batter’s box in the bottom of the sixth with the bases loaded, he provided the game's biggest highlight to that point, delivering a go-ahead, two-run double off Milwaukee reliever Abner Uribe to temporarily give Los Angeles the lead.
While a pair of late Milwaukee home runs ultimately handed Los Angeles a 6-2 loss that pushed the Dodgers into a 3-0 series deficit, the sixth-inning rally offered the first real sign of life and provided a much-needed spark from the team's two coldest stars.
In that sixth inning, Shohei Ohtani helped set the table by working a walk to load the bases ahead of Smith's double. Ohtani later ripped a 113.5 mph single up the middle in the eighth -- his hardest-hit ball since June 20.
For a Dodgers offense that had gone scoreless in five frames Wednesday against Milwaukee starter Robert Gasser, seeing both stars generate hard contact and quality at-bats offered a flicker of hope.
The surge also offered some validation for manager Dave Roberts, who spent the first three games of the series searching for any combination that could jumpstart a lineup that had managed just five runs across the first two games in Milwaukee.
After batting third in Game 1 and sliding to fifth in Game 2, Smith dropped down to seventh in Wednesday’s starting lineup. Meanwhile, Ohtani -- who hit cleanup in Games 1 and 2 -- was moved down to sixth, with Kyle Tucker elevated to fourth.
For Roberts, the overhaul was less about insulating any single hitter and more about generating consistent, team-wide offense.
"I think it's just more that I love the length of the lineup," Roberts said pregame. "As far as Will, moving him down a little bit to, like I always say, give the player a different look, let the game come to him. ... Having him there to bleed around the wraparound of the lineup, I think, is going to be a good thing."
Roberts added that shifting Ohtani to sixth was designed to alternate left- and right-handed bats, preventing Milwaukee’s bullpen from easily pairing matchups.
That strategy unfolded directly in the sixth, as the middle of the order created the exact pressure Roberts envisioned. After Teoscar Hernández and Tucker drew back-to-back walks off Uribe, Ohtani’s walk loaded the bases with one out and Smith’s big swing to left-center field temporarily put Los Angeles in front.
Those two runs represented all of the Dodgers' offensive production on the night. The team has still yet to hit a home run this series (the Brewers, meanwhile, have hit five) and is 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position.
"We just have to be better as an offense [and] put together better at-bats with men in scoring position," Smith said. "You know, just get back to ourselves. Keep fighting one game at a time, and that's how we're going to make it."