Inside the swing adjustment that accelerated Johan Rojas’ path to the majors with the Phillies

On the second Sunday in March, the Phillies began to trim their roster. Ten players packed their bags and migrated to minor league camp on the quieter, less starry side of the Carpenter Complex.

Among those first cuts: Johan Rojas.

Now, Rojas was never going to be in the majors on opening day. Not this season, at least. Still, two weeks of spring training games seemed like an unusually short audition for the touted prospect, especially considering the Phillies at the time lacked a true center fielder to back up Brandon Marsh.

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But in sending down Rojas when they did, the Phillies calculated that he would benefit more from working with the minor league hitting coaches. What followed was a plan to transform his swing, always a work in progress relative to his elite defense.

And while nobody knew it then, it turned Rojas into a key contributor for the Phillies down the stretch.

“I remember we talked with my bat, how it’s going to the point of contact,” said Rojas, who celebrated his 23rd birthday Monday and will mark the one-month anniversary of his major league debut Tuesday. “They showed me video of me before. My bat was fast, but just the angle was different.”

Rojas gripped an invisible bat and pretended to swing.

“It’s more even [level],” he said in English. “[Level] and down [through the zone]. It’s truer for putting the ball from gap-to-gap and getting it more in the air.”

It happened over a few meetings between Rojas, double-A hitting coach Tyler Henson, and director of hitting development Luke Murton, who joined the organization last December. In the coaches’ view, Rojas’ barrel lagged behind as his bat entered the hitting zone, which caused him to hit too many balls on the ground rather than on a line.

Henson, who spent 10 years in the minors before becoming a coach in the Phillies’ farm system in 2017, realized it last season after Rojas got to double-A Reading. He consulted with Murton, previously a scout with the Padres, and they suggested a few tweaks that made sense to Rojas.

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“We talked about some bat-path stuff and how we could make him a little more efficient and give him basically a shorter route to the ball,” Murton said by phone. “Johan definitely took to it very quickly. He worked very hard. At the end of the day, he deserves all the credit. We gave him a little bit of information, and he took it and ran with it and he’s done great with it.”

Indeed, after signing out of his native Dominican Republic for $10,000 as a 17-year-old in 2018 and posting a .267/.328/.397 batting line through four minor league seasons, Rojas batted .306/.361/.484 in 76 games for Reading. He had 20 doubles, five triples, and nine homers, a breakthrough season at the plate to complement his defensive wizardry.

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When the Phillies called up Rojas to replace injured Cristian Pache, they thought it would be temporary. They knew Rojas would play stellar defense, as he demonstrated with a leaping catch into the scoreboard in the first inning of his first game. But Rojas is 19-for-63 (.302) with a .766 on-base plus slugging, including 10-for-34 (.294) with a .796 OPS against right-handed pitching.

An RBI single two weeks ago against Pirates closer David Bednar, as tough a righty reliever as there is, opened manager Rob Thomson’s eyes. Rojas also has brought energy to the bottom of the order, with five stolen bases in six attempts.

The Phillies passed on a deadline trade for a righty-hitting outfielder largely because they wanted to give Rojas more playing time. With Marsh on the injured list with a bruised left knee and Pache testing his surgically repaired right elbow on an assignment at triple-A Lehigh Valley, Rojas is playing almost every day.

And looking like he belongs.

“He’s gone there, he’s performed great, and he’s given the club a jolt in a good way,” Murton said. “He’s a young kid. As he gets older, I think he’ll learn to get to more and more power, but I think the upside is tremendous for him. He’s done an amazing job.”

Rojas remains a work in progress at the plate. He has a 51.2% ground-ball rate, consistent with his numbers in the minors. Given his speed, that isn’t the worst thing in the world. But the Phillies believe the 5-foot-11, 165-pounder has the power to hit more line drives in the gap.

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“He’s a lot stronger than I would say 90% of the guys at his weight,” Henson said recently. “When he hits it right, it goes, and that has a lot to do with the barrel path. Getting it into the zone a little bit cleaner has helped him get the ball in the air a little bit more.”

But the improvement is stark. Barring soreness from getting hit on the elbow by a fastball in the seventh inning Sunday, Rojas is expected to be in the lineup when the Phillies open a two-game series Tuesday night in Toronto.

And although Pache could rejoin the team over the weekend, with Marsh slated to return later in the month, Rojas appears to have cemented a spot on the roster.

“He’s playing great,” Thomson said. “We’ll see if he can keep it going, but he looks very comfortable.”

Trea Turner has a 10-game hitting streak in which he’s 17-for-39 (.436) with six doubles and two homers. He had an 11-game streak early in the season. ... Lefty reliever José Alvarado (elbow inflammation) will begin a minor league assignment Tuesday night at Lehigh Valley. ... Zack Wheeler (9-5, 3.74 ERA) will start the opener in Toronto against Blue Jays lefty Yusei Kikuchi (9-4, 3.53).