Graphic by Dani Ramirez
Written by Steven Mynott
It was the bottom of the ninth inning with one out and no runners on base. The Los Angeles Dodgers trailed 3-4 against the Toronto Blue Jays in game seven of the World Series. In the previous inning, Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy hit a solo home run to bring the Dodgers within one run, but it was looking like it might have been a bit too little, a bit too late. The Blue Jays were two outs away from winning their first World Series Championship since they won it back-to-back in 1992 and 1993.
Then, Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas stepped up to the plate. Rojas is known as an elite defender, not for his hitting ability. He only hit seven home runs all year. He did not play the first five games of the World Series. He only found himself in the line-up because center fielder Andy Pages had been struggling offensively for the entire postseason.
With two-way player and living legend Shohei Ohtani on deck, the optimistic view was just hoping Rojas could get on base so that Ohtani might be able to hit a two-run home run to take the lead. Instead, Rojas made magic happen. On a full-count pitch, Rojas hit a home run of his own to tie the game, 4-4. Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Davis said what we were all thinking as Rojas rounded first base, “No way, Miguel Rojas!”
Shortstop Mookie Betts expanded on the same sentiment in a post-game interview, “No shade to Miggy Rojas, but nobody is really expecting a homer with two outs from Miggy Rojas. And he did. It was one of those things. We believe in him, but we didn’t know about a homer, right? It’s just fitting.”
Following Rojas’s home run, two quick outs against Ohtani and catcher Will Smith sent a tie game to the bottom of the ninth inning. After two Blue Jays runners got on base with one out, pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto came into the game to relieve pitcher Blake Snell, capping off one of the most dominant performances by a single player in postseason history. Yamamoto previously pitched a complete game in game two of the National League Conference Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, followed by another complete game in game two of the World Series, making him the first pitcher to record two consecutive complete games in the postseason since pitcher Randy Johnson did it for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001. And as if that were not already impressive enough, Yamamoto threw 96 pitches in six innings the previous day in game six of the World Series. It was almost unfathomable that he would come into game seven on zero days of rest, but he did. That is the reason why Yamamoto was awarded the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player Award.
Yamamoto and the Dodgers survived the bottom of the ninth inning, but not without more drama, and of course, Rojas found himself in the middle of the action yet again. The Blue Jays were again on the verge of winning the World Series. They had the bases loaded. All the Blue Jays had to do was score a single run, and they would be champions. With one out, Blue Jays center fielder Daulton Varsho hit a ground ball towards second base, which Rojas barely managed to grab and make an off-balance throw to get Blue Jays second baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa out by mere inches at home plate.
Rojas reflected on this play in an interview with JM Baseball. The interviewer, Chris Rose, started showing a video of the play, but Rojas interrupted: “Can you please stop, I don’t want to watch this play.” When asked why, he said, “This gives me a lot of anxiety. … I have to be honest, this gets me really nervous, right here. I can’t watch that play.” Rojas continued, “I took a bad route to the ground ball, I went backwards on it. I was lucky that I put my glove on it and the ball stayed in, and then I lost my balance on it and I thought it was over. When I lost my balance there, everything—like, my heart dropped, to be honest. … When I kind of lost my step a little bit, I thought it was over.” Thankfully for Rojas, the Dodgers and Dodger fans around the world, it was not over. Rojas made the play.
Then the very next batter, Blue Jays third baseman Ernie Clement, hit a fly ball to deep left-center field. Now it was Pages’s turn to be the hero. After sitting on the bench for most of game seven due to his struggling offense, Pages entered the game as a defensive substitution with the bases loaded for center fielder Tommy Edman, who was playing on an injured ankle. It looked like it was sure to end the game, but Pages ran 121 feet and bulldozed over his teammate, left fielder Kiké Hernández, to make a miraculous catch and keep the Dodgers’ season alive.
Hernández laughed about the catch on Jimmy Kimmel Live. First he set the stage, “Bases loaded, ninth inning, ball drops, we lose, right?” Then Hernández described what happened after the ball was hit, “I get a bad jump ‘cause the pitch almost bounced. He kind of like, put the bat on the ball. I broke, half-step in, and then I’m running. And I’m thinking about my entire life as I’m following this ball, and I felt like I’ve run the 400 meter dash. And, like, as I’m finally about to catch the ball, the only thing I’ve got to worry about is the wall, right? And I’m like, ‘World Series on the line, I’m going to run through it.’ But I get to the ball. And if you look at the video, I’m slowing down, ‘cause I’ve got it. And out of nowhere, I felt like an NBA player ‘cause my teammate posterized me. And I go down. And in my head, everything is quiet, which should have told me that he caught it. But I’m like, ‘my brain is protecting me from heartbreak, we just lost this World series because my teammate dunked on me.’ And I’m just laying on the ground, sad because we just lost the World Series. And I feel, like, a tap on the back. He’s like, ‘Are you okay?’ And I was like, ‘eff me being okay, did you catch it?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I caught it!’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go!’
Then, in the eleventh inning, Smith turned himself into a Dodgers game seven hero. With two outs, he hit the go-ahead home run, making the score 5-4 for the Dodgers. The game ended in the bottom of the eleventh inning when Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk hit into a double play.
Game three of the World Series was also notable for several reasons. It lasted 18 innings and six hours and 51 minutes, making it the second longest game in World Series history. All-time-great Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw announced his retirement earlier this year. He threw the last pitch of his career in the top of the twelfth inning. Later in the same game, Dodgers pitcher Will Klein threw a heroic 72 pitches in four shutout innings to preserve the game for the Dodgers. In this game, Klein doubled his previous career high of 36 pitches in a single game. Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman ended the game with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the eighteenth inning. Freeman is now the only player in history with two World Series walk-off home runs.
The Dodgers are now back-to-back World Series Champions. They are the first team with back-to-back titles since the New York Yankees won three in a row in 1998, 1999 and 2000. During the championship parade, Ohtani said, through his Japanese interpreter, “I’m already thinking about the third time we’re going to do this.”
