Gavin Stone pitches a shutout as Dodgers sweep the White Sox

The Dodgers broke the game open with three runs in the third, a rally that began with Kiké Hernández’s single to center, Austin Barnes’ infield single and Ohtani’s four-pitch walk. Teoscar Hernández hit a sacrifice fly to right field, and Freeman roped a two-run double to right to push the lead to 4-0.

Stone retired the side in order in the first, third, fourth, seventh and eighth innings. He pitched around Gavin Sheets’ leadoff double in the second, getting Andrew Vaughn to ground out to third, Paul DeJong to ground out to first and Korey Lee to fly out to left.

DeJong reached on a one-out bloop single to center in the fifth, but Stone got Lee to fly to right and dotted a 95-mph knee-high sinker on the inside corner for a called-third strike on Nicky Lopez. Lenyn Sosa singled to lead off the sixth but was wiped out on Andrew Benintendi’s double-play grounder to second.

Will Smith was supposed to start all three games in the White Sox series, which was sandwiched around off-days Sunday and Thursday, but Roberts held Smith out of Wednesday night’s lineup to give the struggling catcher extra time to work with the team’s hitting coaches on some mechanical adjustments to his swing.

Smith, who also sat out one of two games against the Angels last weekend, entered Wednesday in a 2-for-34 (.059) slump, a 10-game stretch in which he had a .381 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, one homer and four RBIs.

An All-Star in 2023, Smith was batting .295 with an .867 OPS on June 12. He entered Wednesday with a .264 average and .801 OPS.

“He’s in a little funk — I just don’t think he’s swinging the bat like he’s capable of,” Roberts said. “There are some balls that are hit hard, but there’s also some pitches that I feel that when he’s right, he makes a better move [on]. He feels good, so it’s not a physical thing, and it’s not a mental thing — he’s as mentally tough as they come.

“So that leads to the mechanical part. My thought was to take today and work through some things mechanically. We have a night game, so there’s more time to do that. … It’s a long season. I don’t expect him to be great or perfect all year. This is one of those times when I just don’t feel the need to push him.”

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