slump

MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers have a big hole in the middle of their batting order, and it’s not Shohei Ohtani.

If anything, Ohtani has reemerged as an offensive force in the cleanup spot, singling, walking and scoring the Dodgers’ only run Sunday in a 2-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series.

The problem is with the guy hitting in front of Ohtani.

Will Smith walked in four plate appearances, marking just the second time he’s reached base in the postseason. In the four division series games against the Atlanta Braves, he had a single in 16 at-bats, striking out seven times. He’s hitting .053 in the playoffs — only Cleveland’s Ángel Martínez has a lower average among players with at least nine at-bats.

But there’s not much the Dodgers can do about it. They are built to win with pitching and Smith, the catcher, is the guy they rely on to guide those pitchers through games.

Dalton Rushing, who started just five fewer games behind the plate than Smith this season, is injured and not on the roster. Hunter Feduccia, who did make the team, caught just 15 complete games this season and isn’t an option to start in the playoffs.

“I’m not going to put Feduccia in place of Will Smith,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s just not going to happen.”

So Roberts and the Dodgers are left to muddle on with Smith regardless of how much he struggles offensively. That’s because he’s far more valuable crouching behind the plate than standing next to it.

“I don’t even know how he’s performing offensively,” said Tarik Skubal, who took the loss Sunday. “Catchers, I think it’s the most important position on the field. They’re the ones calling pitches, dictating game flow, rhythm, all that type of stuff. I’m going to trust those guys always.”

Smith appears to be executing his catching duties very well, since opponents have scored just 10 runs and are hitting .160 against the Dodgers this postseason. Only Tampa Bay, which has played two fewer games, has done better.

As for what Smith thinks, that’s unknown because the Dodgers did not make him available to the media Sunday. But since he’s not coming out of the lineup, the next-best solution might be moving him to another spot in the order.

That worked with Ohtani, who had as many strikeouts as hits in the first two games of the division series, when he batted second. Since being dropped in the order, he has reached base four times in three games, stolen a base and scored twice.

“There’s always lineup construction. I can think it through. He’s not swinging the bat well,” Roberts said of Smith. “It’s hard because of the body of work, he just has that knack to get a hit, to get a big hit.”

That’s exactly what happened last fall when Smith’s two-out, 11th-inning home run in Game 7 of the World Series helped the Dodgers win a second straight title.

Smith was on the injured list for 86 days this summer because of neck disk inflammation, returning for the final month when he slashed .290/.400/.548. He has cooled off considerably in October, just as he did last year, when he returned from a right hand contusion three games into the playoffs and got just two hits in his first 14 at-bats.

He recovered to bat .400 in last year’s NLCS win over Milwaukee, then broke a 4-4 tie with his winning homer against the Toronto Blue Jays. Just as important, though, Smith caught all but 11 innings in the Dodgers’ final 15 postseason games — including two 11-inning games and another that lasted 18 innings.

Smith rarely has hit well in the postseason, batting just .206 in 18 series, which may explain Roberts’ lack of panic. Plus, Roberts knows his All-Star catcher has helped him win three World Series rings, and if the Dodgers are to get another, it will be on the strength of their pitching, not their hitting.

And that side of Smith’s game is as strong as ever.

“To be honest, that’s not where my focus is with Will,” Skubal said of his catcher’s hitting. “My focus is what he’s doing behind the dish and he’s very important. He’s very important to the entire pitching staff.”

He pounded his chest twice as he left the batter’s box, and all of Dodgers nation rocked to the beat.

Andy Pages did it. He finally did it. He finally broke out of his baffling two-year October slump with a hit so powerful, he didn’t even have to climb over Kiké Hernández to get it.

How powerful? With one smooth swing he broke a tie by scoring two runs while sending two teams packing, the Atlanta Braves trudging home for the winter and the Dodgers charging into the National League Championship Series.

Yeah, it was a blast, both figuratively and literally, Pages’ two-out, two-strike bases-loaded single in the seventh inning Wednesday night silencing the lame tomahawk-chopping fans at Truist Park and giving the Dodgers an eventual clinching 4-1 victory against the Braves in the National League Division Series.

Dodger Andy Pages hits a two-RBI single against the Braves during Game 4 of the NLDS Wednesday in Atlanta.

(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Certainly, it only gets tougher from here. In winning this best-of-five series three games to one, the Dodgers can now prepare for a best-of-seven showdown task against either the mighty Milwaukee Brewers or blazing San Diego Padres.

Yes, they will need to hit better, they will need Blake Snell to find his focus, they will need Shohei Ohtani to show up.

But… Andy Pages! Seriously! If a guy who was seven for 66 in the last two postseasons and was so helpless last year he was benched for the last three games of the World Series… if that guy can drive in the winning run from the bottom of the order? The once-fallible Dodgers may just be unbeatable.

“There’s no more talented team than the Los Angeles Dodgers,” manager Dave Roberts shouted in the postgame clubhouse. “We’re the best organization in sports, top to bottom. We’re smarter, we’re better, and we’re tougher.”

At that point, someone referenced a recent comment from Padres owner José E. Feliciano insinuating that the Dodgers, baseball’s oldest team, was composed of dinosaurs.

“And we’re dinosaurs!” shouted a voice above the clubhouse din.

If they’re dinosaurs, their first initial is “T” and their last name is ‘Rex.”

It’s OK to start seriously thinking about a three-peat now. They’re now just eight wins away but, given how mediocre the American League playoff teams appear, they could realistically be just four wins away.

Here’s guessing that the NLCS will be the real World Series. And here’s guessing the Dodgers will be ready.

Pages, who won the hearts of Dodger fans last October when he made a leaping game-saving catch over the back of Kiké Hernández, was granted his first big October swing thanks to the Braves largess.

In the seventh inning of a 1-all tie, Teoscar Hernández redeemed himself for another fielding blunder with a single that finally drove dizzying Tyler Mahle from the game.

In came Game 2 rookie sensation Didier Fuentes, only this time, he was all rookie and zero sensation, walking Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Considering De Paula is just a kid and Tucker has been struggling, the fact that both showed such patience in such a pressure situation was pretty cool. And moments later, it got even cooler.

In came veteran reliever Robert Suarez, and Pages was ready for him, working the count full before lining the two-run single up the middle.

The Dodgers added a run two innings later on a Max Muncy home run — has there ever been a playoff game when he hasn’t homered? — to finalize the score.

Dodger Max Muncy celebrates after hitting a home run in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLDS against the Braves in Atlanta Wednesday.

(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

When the game ended on an Austin Riley fly out to right field, Pages celebrated in center field by taking off his cap, turning his face to the sky and pounding the cap three times into his glove.

It was a series that was worth the emotion, the Dodgers famous starting rotation giving up just four runs in 21 ⅓ innings, the bullpen solid behind a revived Edwin Díaz, and the offense doing just enough to beat Braves aces Chris Sale and Mahle.

In the fifth inning of a tie game, starter Tyler Glasnow issued walks to Riley and Michael Harris II. With two out, in came Alex Vesia. Up stepped slugger Matt Olson. The fans climbed to their feet. This was the Braves’ big chance.

Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz throws the ball against the Braves in the ninth inning Game 4 of the NLDS Wednesday in Atlanta.

(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

But Olson swung at the first pitch and lined it directly to second baseman Kiké Hernández to end the threat and quiet the joint. Díaz threw a hitless ninth for his second save of the series and…who’s going to beat them?

Afterward, Roberts referenced nearly half of his team when talking about his pride. He talked about Pages’ hit, about De Paula’s walk, about reliever Edgardo Henriquez’s 1 ⅔ shutout innings, about Muncy’s bat and Freddie Freeman’s glove.

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“I guess, amazement,” he said. “Our guys just continue to fight, persevere. You never know who the guy’s going to be.”

The only glaring weakness was, once again, the superstar who used to be their strength. Ohtani scored the Dodgers’ first run after drawing a walk but went hitless in three ensuing at-bats. He only got two hits in the four-game series and you have to wonder if his injury-wracked body would be better out of the lineup.

How well are they playing without the full services of their most historic player? On the verge of making history, the Dodgers don’t even miss him.

LAFC, mired in a slump having won just two of its last 13 games in all competition, fired first-year coach Marc Dos Santos on Sunday with six matches left in the MLS regular season.

The firing, announced in a three-paragraph statement, comes less than 24 hours after Saturday’s 1-0 loss to FC Dallas dropped the team to sixth in the Western Conference table.

“Marc has given a great deal to this club over the years, and we are grateful for his commitment, care and contributions to LAFC,” said John Thorrington, the team’s president of soccer operations, in the release. “We wish Marc and his family all the best moving forward.”

LAFC (11-9-8) said it will begin the search for a new manager immediately but didn’t say who would coach the team in its next game on Oct. 10, after the two-week FIFA international break.

Dos Santos, 49, was an assistant on Bob Bradley’s staff in LAFC’s inaugural season in 2018. He left after the season to take over the Vancouver Whitecaps but struggled to a 22-39-20 record in 2 ½ years that were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the team to play many of its games on the road.

Dos Santos returned to LAFC as an assistant in 2022, this time for Steve Cherundolo, helping the team to a Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup. When Cherundolo stepped down after last season, Dos Santos was given the head coaching job just two weeks later, becoming the third manager in the team‘s history.

His two stints as an assistant at LAFC taught him that the team’s fans are among the most demanding in MLS, something he said he embraced.

“It’s a privilege when you coach a team in Los Angeles,” he said at the time. “Every sport here is pressure. Every team here is win, win.

“It’s a winning city and the culture of the city. So I understand that.”

Dos Santos, who is fluent in four languages, was born in Montreal and split his childhood between Quebec and Portugal. With the exception of Vancouver, he has won everywhere he’s managed, from the Ottawa Fury of the NASL, where he was named the league’s coach of the year in 2015, to the San Francisco Deltas, whom he guided to an NASL title.

LAFC was unbeaten in its first 11 matches in all competition under Dos Santos, outscoring opponents 27-3 and advancing to the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup, where it lost to Mexico’s Toluca, the eventual winner. But the team has gone 6-9-7 in MLS play since then, including Saturday’s loss when Dos Santos was without six key players — including leading scorer Denis Bouanga and captain Son Heung-min — who were with their national teams.

Afterward, he spoke about his plans for the two-week international break.

“It’s a hard moment right now for us. And we have to face it,” said Dos Santos, who was popular with his players. “It’s been hard for us to get wins. A lot of draws, a lot of close games.

“We need to have everybody together and start working on what this team can be. That’s the big objective during the break.”