LOS ANGELES — Game 5 of the 2025 World Series will come with some changes for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup, their first major shakeup of the postseason.

The first change is Mookie Betts moving from second to third in the lineup, making Will Smith the new batter behind Shohei Ohtani. The second is swapping out Andy Pages for Alex Call in the No. 9 spot.

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The new lineup will take the field at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday against Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Trey Yesavage. The series is tied 2-2.

Both changes are understandable. Betts has hit well below his career standards this postseason, at .250/.338/.350 with zero homers. Since the start of the NLCS, he is 5-for-34 (.147) with only one extra-base hit. Given how much the Blue Jays have been walking Ohtani, that is a level of production the Dodgers cannot afford to have at the No. 2 spot.

The bigger issue is the No. 9 spot.

To say Pages is struggling would be giving him too much credit. Since the start of the postseason, he is 5-for-40 with 11 strikeouts. As Yahoo Sports’ Céspedes Family BBQ notes, his .215 OPS isn’t just bad — it’s easily the worst OPS ever seen in a postseason from a player with at least 50 plate appearances.

Just like with Betts, those struggles are in a very bad place for the Dodgers. Thanks to Ohtani batting leadoff, Los Angeles might be the team that can least afford to have an automatic out at the end of the lineup. Case in point: Ohtani has 11 extra-base hits this postseason, and Pages hasn’t been on base for a single one of them.

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The Dodgers stuck with Pages because he was one of their more valuable position players of the regular season, but his slump stretching into the World Series, in which he’s 1-for-15, forced their hand.

By contrast, Call has as many hits as Pages this postseason (four) on 41 fewer at-bats. He is more likely to reach base, though adding him to the lineup comes with the cost of Pages’ defensive value in center field.

Call can’t play center, and Tommy Edman, theoretically the next man up at the position, has been dealing with a nagging ankle injury during the postseason. So the Dodgers are starting 34-year-old utility man Kiké Hernández there for the first time this postseason, after starting him there only four times in the regular season.

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“Obviously getting Alex in there, I felt that — at the bottom just the at-bat quality, seeing pitches, the potential to get somebody on base for Shohei at the top,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday. “I feel good with Kiké in center field and Alex’s defense in left. And then as far as Mookie and Will, I just feel like — I feel that that’s the best way to win the game tonight. So both players were alerted, and both players are all on board. So that was a decision I made.”

Both of those moves orbit around Ohtani, making his hits more rewarding and his intentional walks more costly. The Dodgers’ offensive issues go beyond those two lineup spots, though, as their non-Ohtani hitters are batting only .239 and slugging only .369 this postseason after leading the NL in the latter during the regular season.