PHOENIX — On June 8 last year, during the Dodgers’ highly anticipated midseason series at Yankee Stadium, Will Smith ran hard trying to beat a throw. As he neared second base he slid, left foot extended. Almost immediately after he hit the base he bent down in pain, having awkwardly rolled his ankle as it jammed against the bag.
It wasn’t publicly revealed, but Smith suffered a bone bruise that resulted in ankle pain for the rest of the season and continued discomfort all the way into spring training.
“It just stuck around all year,” Smith said, “and didn’t get better in the offseason.”
Chalk it up as one more thing that went awry for the Dodgers catcher last year.
At the plate he posted career lows in batting average (.248) and on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.760), failing to sustain a blistering opening month that helped him earn a second All-Star selection and slumping through much of the summer months while struggling in particular against four-seam fastballs.
Smith was nursing the nagging ankle injury, the second straight season he was less than 100% and finished with an OPS under .800. In 2023 he suffered an early rib injury that continued to plague him the rest of the season.
Smith’s ankle injury didn’t come to light until the start of camp, when manager Dave Roberts announced that the 29-year-old backstop — who is entering the second season of the 10-year, $140-million extension he signed last March — would miss the start of Cactus League play to give his ankle extra rest.
“I just don’t think it’s something that’s gonna go away anytime soon,” Roberts said. “It just kind of is what it is.”
Smith made his spring debut Friday night and said his ankle felt 100% as he went 0 for 3 and spent five innings behind the plate in the Dodgers’ win against the Angels. Less than three weeks out from the season-opening trip to Japan, there is no concern about him missing the start of the season.
But as Smith and the team try to figure out the reasons behind his drop in production and create a game plan for a bounce-back performance, the ankle is something he will have to keep managing.
“You can do all sorts of treatment and everything,” Smith said. “But the only thing that really heals it is rest.”
Exactly why his ankle has bothered him this long is unclear — “We’re looking more into why maybe it’s not going away,” he said — but Roberts confirmed that surgery never was an option.
“It’s a bone bruise that’s deep, clearly,” Roberts said. “Four months hasn’t helped the pain go away.”
Neither Smith nor Roberts could say how much it influenced last year’s struggles at the plate.
“It might have a little bit,” Smith said. “But it didn’t hurt really the swing. Maybe I could’ve compensated. I don’t know. But running was the only thing it really affected.”
Roberts offered a slightly different perspective, saying he does “believe the foot was kind of impeding the swing.”
“He’ll never use that as an excuse,” Roberts said. “But I think that certainly played a part.”
The good news: Smith said his swing is in a better spot than during the second half of last year, something he credited to changes in his mechanics; mostly, staying more inside the ball to create “room for my hands to work.”
“There are definitely some mechanical things I was doing last year that I need to clean up,” Smith said. “So worked on them all offseason. Feels good. Swing feels like it’s in a good spot.”
Roberts is hopeful the ankle will be less of an impediment, banking on the club’s franchise catcher, who still is considered one of the best hitters at his position, being able to play at a high level again.
“It’s one of those things that he’s just going to have to deal with it,” Roberts said. “But I think right now he’s in a really good spot.”
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