Johan Rojas wanted in on a World Series. A year later, he delivered to send the Phillies back to the playoffs.
“Next year, I want that,” Rojas said to himself watching the Phillies’ run in 2022. Now he’s a part of the fun after delivering for an “unbelievable” moment.
A few hours before Tuesday’s game, Johan Rojas was in the Phillies’ batting cage with Bryce Harper, observing his routine. Harper gave him a piece of advice.
He told Rojas to stay inside the baseball. Rojas listened. In the bottom of the 10th inning, with one out and ghost runner Cristian Pache standing on second, he stepped up to the plate. He took a fastball for a strike, he lunged at a curveball far out of the zone, and then, he thought of Harper’s words.
Rojas took his next pitch for a ball, and on his fourth and final pitch, he connected with a four-seam fastball, hitting it up the middle for a game-winning, postseason-clinching RBI single to beat the Pirates, 3-2.
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Harper found him on the field amid the celebration a few moments later.
“He said, ‘It was just like we talked about,’ ” Rojas said. “‘Just like we talked about.’ ”
Last October, when Rojas was playing in the Arizona Fall League, he watched the Phillies’ playoff run on his laptop from his apartment. When he came home to the Dominican Republic, he made sure to not miss a single World Series game. It made an impression.
“I said to myself, ‘Next year, I want that,’ ” Rojas said.
In 2023, he doesn’t just have it, he is contributing to it. He is at the epicenter of it. On Tuesday night, he was the victor, the one who made sure his team would be playing meaningful baseball past Oct. 1. And as he stood in the middle of the Phillies’ clubhouse, getting doused in beer by his teammates, Rojas had just one word to describe the moment.
“Unbelievable,” he said.
He was not the only one who felt that way. The celebration featured players young and old, superstars who signed multimillion-dollar contracts, and pitchers who signed minor league deals. Rookies at the start of their Phillies careers, and veterans who could be nearing the end of them.
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Twenty-two-year-old reliever Orion Kerkering danced to a remix of Cher’s “Believe” with 30-year-old Garrett Stubbs and Kyle Schwarber, and just a few feet away, Aaron Nola took in the entire scene. The right-handed starter is eligible to hit free agency this winter for the first time in his nine-year career. There’s no guarantee that he will be back with the Phillies. He was drafted at age 21 and this is the only organization he has ever known.
So he is trying to soak in the moments. Sometimes that means literally soaking in them — feeling every drop of the beer that’s being doused on your head — but it always means not taking anything for granted.
Nola had another dominant performance on Tuesday, tossing 6⅔ innings of one-run ball, with eight strikeouts, and as he walked off the field, he got a standing ovation. He normally nods to the crowd, but on this night, in what could’ve been his final regular-season start for the Phillies, he decided to tip his cap.
“I’m trying to embrace every moment,” he said. “Especially right now. The fans have got our backs. I could hear them all night. We could all hear them all night.”
Nola hung in the dugout for the rest of the game. He watched reliever Jeff Hoffman, who was released by the Twins on March 28 and signed a minor-league deal with the Phillies on March 30, pitch a scoreless 10th to keep the score tied at 2.
When Hoffman struck out Henry Davis to end the inning, Nola pumped his fist. He was no longer in line for the win, but he was just as excited for his teammate.
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“It was awesome,” Nola said. “That’s probably one of the hardest situations for a bullpen guy to come into, and he does it. There were big emotions in that moment.”
And there will be more emotions, for Nola, for Kerkering, for Rojas, for Hoffman, and more. In the postseason, anyone can be the hero.