Louisville Professional Athletes

Louisville's Will Smith: Slump, Dad Strength, and a Series-Shifting Moment

It has been a postseason defined by contradictions for Louisville alum Will Smith. The Dodgers catcher entered the NLCS hitting .043 — a historically brutal number for a starting catcher on a team chasing a third straight World Series — and had become one of the most scrutinized players in October baseball. Then, in the span of a few hours on Game 3 night, everything shifted.

Hours before first pitch, Smith and his wife Cara announced the birth of their third child. Then, with the Dodgers facing a must-win moment down 2-0 in the series and the bases loaded in the sixth inning, Smith launched a drive to the wall in left-center. It narrowly missed a grand slam and settled for a go-ahead two-run double — exactly the kind of at-bat that had been absent through the first two rounds.

"Dad strength," Yahoo Sports quipped. It was hard to argue.

The hit lifted Smith's average to .097 on the postseason — still a meager number, but the context matters. The double came with the Dodgers' backs against the wall, it scored two, and it gave LA the lead in a game they couldn't afford to lose.

The Road to That Moment Was Ugly

The scrutiny Smith faced heading into Game 3 was legitimate and well-documented. He was 1-for-23 entering the series against Milwaukee, and questions about whether he was playing through injury dominated the Dodgers beat. Manager Dave Roberts deflected repeatedly when asked about benching him, publicly backing his catcher while privately acknowledging the struggles.

The Game 2 situation added another layer. Smith chose not to use the Dodgers' Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenges on two close pitches early in the game — pitches that, had they been overturned, could have altered the trajectory of Yoshinobu Yamamoto's start. Roberts didn't hide his displeasure after the loss. Smith was candid with reporters: "Yeah, I went back and looked," he said, acknowledging the missteps.

The demotion question became unavoidable when the Dodgers quietly shuffled Smith's spot in the lineup before Game 3. Meanwhile, backup catcher and fellow Louisville alum Dalton Rushing wasn't even on the playoff roster — leaving LA with no viable alternative behind the plate regardless of how deep the slump ran.

Two Cardinals in October

Rushing's absence is notable in its own right. The 24-year-old spent the regular season as Smith's heir apparent, but the Dodgers opted not to include him on either the NLDS or NLCS roster. With Smith clearly managing something physically, it's a roster construction decision that has amplified every Smith strikeout and passed ball.

For Louisville fans, the NLCS is a Cardinals-on-Cardinals situation: two alums on the same team, one in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, the other watching from the outside.

Smith's Game 3 double doesn't erase the struggles, and the Dodgers still have ground to make up in the series. But for one at-bat, the Louisville backstop delivered when the margin for error had essentially disappeared. Whether that moment signals a turn or remains an outlier is the question hanging over Dodger Stadium as the series continues.

Louisville Alumni Report | MLB | Oct. 4–10, 2026

October is proving to be a Louisville story in two very different cities — one Cardinal is catching in the postseason spotlight, another is the talk of the offseason contract market before it's even begun.

Will Smith: Catching for the Dodgers in October

Will Smith is behind the plate for a Los Angeles Dodgers team rolling through the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves. Through three games, the Louisville product has been a steady presence in a lineup that's carrying some of the biggest names in baseball — including Shohei Ohtani, who was actually dropped to fifth in the order for Game 3 behind Smith and Teoscar Hernández after a slow start to the series.

That lineup construction isn't a small detail. It reflects just how much the Dodgers trust Smith as a middle-of-the-order force, not merely a glove-first catcher. The bat hasn't fully arrived yet in this series — Smith is hitting .063 through three games, with his lone hit coming in Game 2 of a 3-1 Dodgers win — but Los Angeles holds a commanding series advantage regardless.

Notably absent from the Dodgers' NLDS roster is fellow Louisville alumnus Dalton Rushing, who had an elbow injury significantly limit his availability down the stretch, ultimately costing him a postseason spot in favor of top prospect Josue De Paula. Smith, then, is flying the Cardinal flag alone in Chavez Ravine this October.

Reid Detmers: Ace-Level Money on the Horizon

While Smith is playing for a championship, Reid Detmers is generating a different kind of buzz in Anaheim — the kind measured in years and annual value.

After a dominant 2026 breakout season, Detmers has cemented himself as the Angels' unquestioned ace, and the contract extension chatter is already heating up. The left-hander's performance this year has reportedly prompted projections and market comparisons to other frontline starters, with analysts weighing what a long-term deal might cost the Angels to keep him.

For a franchise that has spent years searching for pitching stability, the calculus is straightforward: lock Detmers up now, or risk an expensive bidding war down the road. The Angels are also navigating a transitional moment at third base as they wait for Louisville prospect Jake Munroe to work his way up through the minors — meaning the front office will have plenty of financial decisions to make. Detmers' extension could be the most consequential of them.

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From behind the plate in an NLDS to the top of a rebuilding team's long-term plans, Louisville's MLB pipeline is showing up in October for all the right reasons.