A struggling Johan Rojas says he’s been ‘a little shy’ at the plate. He broke out against the Cardinals.

Rojas had his third career three-hit game, and maybe it will enable him to breathe easier. For a few days, at least.

Published April 9, 2024, 7:43 a.m. ET

ST. LOUIS — As Johan Rojas went to the plate in the third inning Monday night, a number stared back from the scoreboard at Busch Stadium.

.045.

“You’re a young guy in the big leagues and you’ve got the numbers he’s got,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said before the game, “it’s going to weigh on you to a certain degree.”

Imagine how it must have felt, then, for Rojas to scorch a belt-high slider from Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas for a leadoff double to left field. Not only was it his first extra-base hit — heck, his first hit out of the infield — this season, but it was the hardest-hit ball of his 68-game major-league career — 108.1 mph off the bat.

But Rojas actually took greater satisfaction from his next at-bat.

With runners on the corners and nobody out in the fifth inning of a scoreless game, Rojas saw Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt inching in for a bunt. Rojas reached out and cued a slider on the outside corner through the vacated right side of the infield to drive in Brandon Marsh from third base.

“It does feel nice,” Rojas said, in English, after the Phillies won the series opener, 5-3 in 10 innings. “They come in, all right, I got my base hit. If they’re back, I try to bunt. That felt good. That’s part of the game.”

And it’s really all the Phillies should need from Rojas at the plate.

Rojas beat out a grounder to shortstop in the ninth inning to complete his third career three-hit game, and maybe it will enable him to breathe easier. For a few days, at least. Until the next hitless stretch and more cries that the Phillies should send him to triple A.

The Phillies have been patient so far. They asked him to make changes to his swing in the offseason and implement them in spring training. It’s a process. They told him they would not penalize him for poor numbers in the Grapefruit League. They didn’t. He went 9-for-53 and still started in center field on opening day.

Rojas is an exceptional defender, the best center fielder the Phillies have had since Garry Maddox. It’s the main reason he’s in the majors. He often says he believes he can catch any ball hit in the air in his vicinity, a swagger that comes through in the way that he blankets the outfield like a tarp. In the first inning, he dove to snare a drive from Nolan Gorman on a sinking liner.

But the Phillies don’t want Rojas’ struggles as a hitter to grow so profound that his confidence at the plate is damaged. And there have been a few early-season caution flags amid the small sample of data.

Entering the week, Rojas had swung at 33.3% of pitches out of the strike zone, down from 40.4% last season. But he also swung at only 46.2% of pitches overall compared to 54.4% last season.

Maybe it speaks to indecision at the plate. Maybe Rojas is overthinking. Last month, Thomson said he wanted him to see more pitches from the No. 9 spot in the order. On that count, Rojas is listening. He has swung at a lower percentage of first pitches than last year.

Outwardly, Rojas appears relaxed. He bounces around the clubhouse before games, hollering in Spanish at fellow outfielder Cristian Pache and others. But he conceded after Monday night’s game that he was becoming too passive at the plate.

“I think that I was a little shy at the plate before,” Rojas admitted through a team interpreter. “Right now, what I can do is to be myself.”

In the third inning Monday night, that meant taking an aggressive hack at Mikolas’ hanging slider. In the fifth, it meant taking what the Cardinals were giving him, namely the right side of a drawn-in infield.

More than anything, Thomson said, it means this: making contact.

“Using the field, you know?” Thomson said. “He’s doing a lot of — not chase necessarily, but swing and miss right now. He’s just cutting his swing off a little bit instead of staying through it and using the entire field.”

It wouldn’t be so glaring if other hitters around Rojas were producing as expected. But Nick Castellanos is 4-for-35 with 10 strikeouts; Bryson Stott is 6-for-30 with one extra-base hit; Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber have two extra-base hits apiece.

So, there was Rojas, 1-for-22 with an infield single to his name entering Monday night, walking to the plate with numbers that leaped off the right-field scoreboard.

Compared to that, the .154 average that he will carry entering Tuesday night looks downright rosy.

“Any time you have a night like that after a [tough] start, you can exhale a little bit, breathe a little bit,” Thomson said. “I feel happy for him.”

And Rojas? How did he feel with that 400-pound gorilla off his narrow shoulders?

“I’m thankful just to be here,” he said, smiling. “I can just keep working hard every day no matter what happens.”