Will Smith's clutch homer is the spark in the Dodgers' division-clinching win

Today at 02:31 AM

by Megan Garcia

Will Smith cocked his bat as he awaited the 3–1 pitch from Padres starter Joe Musgrove in the seventh.

Musgrove fired a four-seam fastball intended for the lower outside corner of the strike zone. Instead, Smith swung at the four-seamer at the top of the zone and demolished it.

He flipped his bat toward the Padres dugout and watched the two-run homer land 426 feet to center field. In yet another game that carried the Dodgers' postseason fate, Smith came up big.

"I thought we were still hanging in there," said manager Dave Roberts."Musgrove threw a heck of a ballgame. … Will Smith doesn't show much emotion, but after that homer with the bat flip, you can just see he knew how big of a hit that was. From that point on, we just continued to add on and put those guys away."

His 20th home run tied the game 2–2, igniting the spark for the Dodgers' five-run seventh inning. It propelled the Dodgers to their 11th National League West division title in the last 12 seasons with the 7–2win over the Padres on Thursday.

"It's fun to be in those big games, tight games against good teams," Smith said. "That's what we have to be up against in the postseason, so it's a good test."

Through the first six innings, the Dodgers succeeded in only three at-bats against Musgrove with Mookie Betts' single and doubles from Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani. Strikeouts, groundouts and flyouts filled the scorecard up until the seventh. Musgrove retired 14 of the following 16 batters leading into the seventh after Betts' single in the first.

Max Muncy led off the inning by earning a walk after Musgrove missed off the plate with a curveball. Smith swung at a first-pitch sweeper before the right-hander missed with three consecutive balls. The fourth and final pitch of the at-bat was cause for celebration in Dodger Stadium.

"We knew we were getting to Musgrove," Jack Flaherty, who started on Wednesday and was sitting in the dugout during Smith's at-bat, said. "We knew we were putting some good at-bats together, and then that swing by Will was huge. You just keep going at that point."

Smith is familiar with high-stake moments at the plate. It was his three-run home run that changed the Dodgers' fate in Game 5 of the 2020 NLCS.

Down 3–1 in the series against the Braves, elimination was looming when Smith stepped up to the plate in the sixth with two outs as the Dodgers trailed by one run. Smith worked his way back after falling behind 0–2.

Then, on the 3–2 pitch against Braves reliever Will Smith, Dodgers Will Smith launched a three-run homer to give the Dodgers the lead. They went on to win Game 5 by a score of 7–3. The Dodgers staved off elimination in Games 6 and 7 to eventually punch their ticket to the World Series.

Smith has 111 career home runs. Of them, 58 have either tied the score or given the Dodgers a lead.

"It's fun and it's meaningful to play a role in this organization," Smith said.

He played a starring one on Thursday.

Will Smith's clutch homer is the spark in the Dodgers' division-clinching win was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.