Big Nights for the Backstops Through the First Two Games of the World Series

Cal Raleigh’s tremendous season ended with the elimination of the Mariners from the ALCS, but that hasn’t meant the disappearance of high-impact hitting from catchers during the postseason. So far in the World Series, both the Blue Jays’ Alejandro Kirk and the Dodgers’ Will Smith have been central to their teams’ respective offensive attacks, building on their stellar contributions during the regular season.

Neither Kirk nor Smith had seasons on the level of Raleigh, but the same is true for nearly every other catcher in AL/NL history. That said, the two starting backstops in this World Series each made their respective All-Star teams and ranked second and third in the majors in catcher WAR behind Raleigh’s 9.1. The 26-year-old Kirk hit .282/.348/.421 (116 wRC+) while clubbing a career-high 15 home runs, and he also posted the majors’ second-highest marks in Statcast Fielding Run Value (21) and our own framing metric (11.3 runs), with the latter fueling his career-high 4.7 WAR. The 30-year-old Smith spent much of the season vying for the NL batting title, finishing at .296/.404/.497 with 17 homers and a 153 wRC+, his highest over a full season and the second-best mark on the team behind Shohei Ohtani. Despite subpar defense (-8 FRV and -6.8 FRM) and just 10 plate appearances in September, he produced a solid 4.1 WAR.

The Dodgers couldn’t get Kirk out on Friday night in Toronto, as he not only went 3-for-3 but also drew a first-inning walk that helped set the tone for the Blue Jays, even though it didn’t lead to a run. Facing Blake Snell with two outs and runners on the corners, Kirk got ahead 3-1, then fouled off four straight pitches before finally laying off a curveball in the dirt. His tenacious plate appearance lasted nine pitches; by the time Snell retired Daulton Varsho on a fly ball to end the threat, the two-time Cy Young winner had thrown 29 pitches.

With the Blue Jays trailing 2-0, Kirk led off the fourth inning by battling Snell for another eight pitches, this time falling behind 0-2 and then fouling four pitches off. Finally, he reached out and poked a 97.9-mph, 334-foot drive into the right field corner for a very long single capped by an entertaining scramble back to first base, as if he suddenly remembered his second-percentile sprint speed. Snell followed by leaving his next pitch, a 96-mph four-seamer, in the middle of the zone, and Varsho crushed it for a game-tying home run.

Kirk batted twice during the Blue Jays’ nine-run sixth inning. He followed Bo Bichette’s leadoff walk with a sharp 99-mph single to right field against Snell, then scored when reliever Emmet Sheehan walked Nathan Lukes with the bases loaded. After seven runs had scored — four on Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam — and with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on first, Kirk launched a two-run, 403-foot homer off Anthony Banda to cap Toronto’s scoring.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto kept Kirk in check in Game 2, but the catcher made his presence felt despite going 0-for-3. He plated what turned out to be the Blue Jays’ only run of the game, bringing home George Springer on a sacrifice fly that tied the game at 1-1 in the third inning. That fly out began the string of 20 straight batters set down by Yamamoto to secure his second consecutive complete game, but between that ball and the one he lined out in the ninth, Kirk could claim to be the only Toronto hitter with multiple drives of at least 100 mph off the Dodgers ace.

Indeed Kirk has been pounding the ball lately, just as he did during the regular season. Like many other Blue Jays, he swung harder in 2025 than before; his average bat speed jumped from 70.1 mph in 2023 and ’24 to 72.5 in this one, with his fast-swing rate more than doubling, from 12.2% to 28.5%. Not only did he managed to do all this by trimming his strikeout rate (from 13.2% to 11.7%), but the harder swings paid off with better contact. After two seasons of slightly subpar production, featuring a slugging percentage just below .360 and a wRC+ in the mid-90s, Kirk added nearly two miles per hour to his average exit velocity, boosting his xSLG by 99 points:

As you might surmise from those increasing launch angles, Kirk has lowered his groundball rate, from 50.2% in 2023 to 45.3% in ’24 to 44.2% in ’25; during the postseason, it’s at 31.8%. He did fall 70 points short of his expected slugging percentage during the regular season, at least in part because when he hit the ball in the air, he tended to hit it to center field. This postseason, he’s sprayed those hard-hit fly balls around the outfield more, and as a result, his SLG and xSLG are less than 10 points apart.

Kirk has been a big part of the Blue Jays offense from the outset of the postseason. He homered twice in their 10-1 win over the Yankees in the Division Series opener, first against Luis Gil in the second inning and then Paul Blackburn in the eighth. He singled, scored, and drove in a run in Game 2, and doubled and scored in Game 4. He collected hits in six out of seven games in the ALCS, with a three-run shot off Caleb Ferguson in Game 3 his biggest blast. Overall, he’s batting .255/.316/.529 (130 wRC+) while catching all but one inning of Toronto’s 13 postseason games thus far.

As for Smith, when the postseason opened, his availability to catch was in doubt. On September 3 against the Pirates, he took a foul tip off his right hand and made an early exit. X-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI came back clean, yielding a diagnosis of a bone bruise but nothing more serious. After sitting for five days, Smith returned to the lineup and went 1-for-4 with a double, but following a couple more days of rest, he was in enough discomfort that the Dodgers scratched him 15 minutes before first pitch on September 13. They placed him on the 10-day injured list, and soon sent him for additional imaging.

On September 20, the Dodgers revealed that Smith had suffered a hairline fracture that had previously gone undetected due to inflammation. The belated diagnosis put his status for the playoffs in jeopardy. It was a bitter irony given the extent to which the team managed his workload with an eye toward keeping him fresher for October than last year, when he hit just .143/.246/.321 while catching all but two postseason innings during the Dodgers’ championship run.

While the Dodgers included Smith on the roster for their Wild Card Series against the Reds, he didn’t appear in either game. Instead, Ben Rortvedt — who’d played just 18 games for the team after being acquired from the Rays at the July 31 deadline, and who had never played a postseason game — caught both games while Smith and rookie Daulton Rushing waited in the wings. Rortvedt also started the first two games of the Division Series against the Phillies, but batted just once each time before being pinch-hit for by Smith, who caught the rest of each game. Smith’s first hit of October was a significant one, a bases-loaded two-run single off Orion Kerkering in the seventh inning of Game 2, expanding the Dodgers’ lead to 3-0.

Smith has caught every inning of every Dodgers game since Game 3 of the NLDS, collecting at least one hit in all but one (NLDS Game 4). He went 6-for-15 with a pair of walks during the NLCS against the Brewers, scoring three runs — including the go-ahead run in the sixth-inning of Game 3, after notching the team’s second hit off Jacob Misiorowski in 4 2/3 innings to that point. He also singled and scored against Jose Quintana during the Dodgers’ three-run first inning in Game 4, before Ohtani’s fireworks overshadowed everything else.

Through the NLCS, Smith had hit just .286/.375/.286 with 10 strikeouts across 32 postseason plate appearances — slightly better than last season, but still subpar. While he pulled five of his 18 balls in play to that point, only two of those were in the air: the singles off Kerkering (15-degree launch angle, 89.3 mph) and Misiorowski (10-degree launch angle, 108.1 mph).

In Game 1 against the Blue Jays, Smith led off the second inning by drawing a walk against Trey Yesavage; he was erased by a forceout in that one, but the Dodgers did score. Smith followed back-to-back walks by singling off Yesavage in the third inning, driving in a run to increase the lead to 2-0, but from there it was all Toronto.

The next night, in Game 2, Smith again got going early, following Freddie Freeman’s two-out first-inning double off Kevin Gausman with an RBI single up the middle to put the Dodgers up 1-0. From there, Gausman retired the next 17 batters, and after Kirk’s sac fly, the two starters matched zeroes as the two teams remained deadlocked. With one out in the seventh, Smith faced a diet of four-seamers from Gausman, and when the 34-year-old righty left one up over the inner third of the zone, the Los Angeles catcher hammered it 107.5 mph and 404 feet to left field for solo shot and a 2-1 lead. Gausman’s spell was broken; two batters later Max Muncy homered off him as well.

Smith came to bat once more, with the bases loaded in the eighth inning against Jeff Hoffman. He hit a slow chopper to the drawn-in shortstop Andrés Giménez, who tried to start a double play at second instead of throwing home for the forceout. His lengthy underhand toss to Bichette provided just enough lag time for Smith — who runs well… for a catcher, with 46th-percentile sprint speed — to beat it out and extend the lead to 5-1.

One bit worth noting regarding that home run: Smith’s swing averaged a modest 69.8 mph during the regular season, and he has basically maintained that in the postseason. His home run swing, though, was measured at 74.6 mph, tied for the fastest of any of his swings since June 29, and it produced his first barrel since September 2.

Afterward, manager Dave Roberts drew a connection between Smith’s home run and the Dodgers’ time off between the NLCS and the World Series, saying, “That week off, I think, got him over the hump. It was the first time in a while he’s pulled a ball like that. I think that’s part of the healing process.”

For as tempting as it is to credit Smith’s return to the lineup with sparking the Dodgers’ recent run of strong starts, the full-strength rotation did jell during his absence in September, and it’s not as though his guidance has sprinkled magic pixie dust on the shaky bullpen. That said, Roberts cited the catcher’s calm approach, both at the plate and behind it, as he shepherded Yamamoto through a Blue Jays lineup that had averaged 6.83 runs per game through Game 1 of the World Series. “I think the game calling, the relationship with the pitchers has continued to get better,” said the manager. “He’s always had the bat-to-ball, the ability to hit to all fields… He understands when to pick his spots. He does his homework. I think at the end of the day, he’s a guy that just doesn’t panic. He’s really got a flat-line heartbeat, and in the postseason, that’s what you need.”

With the Dodgers hitting just .185/.284/.338 through the first two games, their offense needs all the help it can get against the Blue Jays. We’ll see if Smith’s big night is an indicator that he’s ready to reclaim his spot among the team’s heavy hitters and help Los Angeles to its second consecutive title. As for Kirk, he’s already one of Toronto’s most impactful bats; he’ll need to maintain that production for the Blue Jays to win their first World Series in three decades.