{"id":242777,"date":"2025-09-21T01:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T01:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/242777\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T01:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T01:32:13","slug":"dodgers-will-smith-has-hand-fracture-will-he-play-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/242777\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers’ Will Smith has hand fracture. Will he play in playoffs?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dodgers catcher Will Smith<\/a> has a hairline fracture in his right hand and is doubtful to return before the end of the regular season, according to manager Dave Roberts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers<\/a> are \u201chopeful\u201d Smith will be available for the postseason, but whether he will be ready for the very start of the playoffs \u2014 which likely will be Sept. 30 \u2014 remains \u201cup in the air,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Smith, the three-time All-Star catcher who led the National League in batting average in the first half of the season before slumping through August, first got hurt when a foul ball hit his dangling throwing hand behind the plate on Sept. 3 in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

After missing the Dodgers\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

Initially, both an X-ray and an MRI on Smith\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

This time, the scan showed what both Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman<\/a> described as a \u201csmall\u201d fracture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds like from the doctors that it\u2019s so small and in such a small part of the hand that it didn\u2019t show up initially but did on the subsequent [scan],\u201d Friedman said. \u201cThey seem to say [that] is common. I haven\u2019t seen it, but I also haven\u2019t seen a broken bone in that area very often. It makes sense why it was slow to rebound. I\u2019m glad we have clarity on it. We\u2019re going to do everything we can to strengthen and heal and get it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this point, the Dodgers have managed without Smith, who was batting .296 with 17 home runs and 61 RBIs. In the 14 games he has missed since getting hurt, the team is 8-6 and averaging more than five runs per game.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

A big reason why: The emergence of journeyman replacement Ben Rortvedt<\/a>, 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<\/a> (who missed 10 days this month after fouling a ball off his leg).<\/p>\n

After joining the team as a career .186 hitter in four MLB seasons, Rortvedt has batted .294 in 13 games with the Dodgers with two doubles and two sacrifice bunts. Dodgers pitchers also have a 2.74 ERA with him behind the plate.<\/p>\n

Even with Rushing healthy again, Roberts said Rortvedt will likely get the \u201clion\u2019s share\u201d of playing time in Smith\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way he\u2019s helped lead our pitching staff has been awesome,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cHe really has that servant leadership mentality behind the plate, which has really ingratiated himself with a lot of our pitchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, to be at top form, the Dodgers need Smith in the middle of the batting order.<\/p>\n

Friedman said the team will keep giving treatment to his hand until \u201che gets to a point where he doesn\u2019t have symptoms, we\u2019ll re-X-ray.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re optimistic that it\u2019s going to heal quickly, but we\u2019re at the mercy of how quickly that happens,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cWe don\u2019t really know, but we\u2019re optimistic it\u2019ll be pretty fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graterol not expected back<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not much of a surprise at this point, but the Dodgers are not expecting reliever Brusdar Graterol to return this season.<\/p>\n

Graterol has not pitched this year after an offseason shoulder surgery, and his recovery \u201chasn\u2019t gone as smoothly as he would like, as we would like,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgers catcher Will Smith has a hairline fracture in his right hand and is doubtful to return before…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,8329,2442,60561,1910,2961,224,5337,20133,51384,1424,129469,26804,72010,4157,42302,3007,6620,5956],"class_list":{"0":"post-242777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-dodger","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-friedman","13":"tag-game","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-next-day","18":"tag-plate","19":"tag-playoff","20":"tag-right-hand","21":"tag-roberts","22":"tag-sept","23":"tag-smith","24":"tag-starting-lineup","25":"tag-team","26":"tag-time","27":"tag-will-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115239711813658886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}