Dodgers notes: Will Smith, Julio Urías, Miguel Vargas, Gavin Lux

Catching up one some Dodgers stories after the off day ...

Dave Roberts said Will Smith was one of the top three catchers in baseball, and called him a superstar. “It probably makes him uncomfortable,” Roberts told Dylan Hernández of the Los Angeles Times, “but given his ability to post and work both sides of the baseball, hit in the middle of the order, you don’t find guys like that.”

Julio Urías has introduced the cutter into his repertoire this season, throwing 20 of them in his first two starts combined, and finishing off four strikeouts with the pitch. All but two of the cutters so far have been thrown to right-handed batters. Daniel Brim at Dodgers Digest wrote about the new pitch.

Miguel Vargas has walked in nine of his 18 plate appearances this season, but it’s not just due to those six games in spring training when he played (and batted 12 times in total) while not being allowed to swing the bat while nursing his hairline pinkie fracture. “Some of his patience is because he’s just telling himself not to swing,” Ben Clemens at FanGraphs wrote in his analysis of the Dodgers’ second baseman, “but a lot is because he’s tracking the ball exceedingly well to boot.”

Chipper Jones, who missed his age-21 season in 1994 because of a torn ACL, called Gavin Lux to show support and give advice to the infielder who will miss the 2023 season. Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic has more.

Pedro Moura walked all 25 miles of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and wrote about his experience for the Los Angeles Times.

If you missed this from Saturday’s broadcast, Stephen Nelson shared a story of his mother getting Orel Hershiser to autograph a ball three decades ago for her son.