Johan Rojas wasn’t supposed to stick with the Phillies — yet. But he had other plans.

ATLANTA — When the Phillies were searching near the end of spring training for a right-handed-hitting center fielder, Johan Rojas’ emergence, at least this season, seemed as likely to come true as the prophecy of someone with a few screws loose.

But there was Rojas, a few months later, getting his chance because of a loose screw.

What happened next was all Rojas. The Phillies called him up from double A in July to fill in temporarily for injured Cristian Pache, and he played so well that he never left. Isn’t it funny how life works? One minute, you’re a talented, but raw hitter showing progress in the minors but deemed to not be ready for the bright lights. The next, you’re banging the ninth pitch of your first career postseason at-bat for a rally-starting base hit and causing another earsplitting eruption at a ballpark in South Philadelphia.

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And now, with the Phillies braced for a divisional-round battle royale against the mighty Braves, Rojas will play center field and bat ninth Saturday in Game 1 against flamethrowing Atlanta ace Spencer Strider.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Rojas said through a team interpreter, “I never imagined something like this.”

Neither did the Phillies. Sure, most team officials believed in the 22-year-old’s ability. Some even saw him as the eventual everyday center fielder. Just not this quickly.

So, there was Tyler Henson, the hitting coach at double-A Reading, shifting in a chair in his living room in Maryland in the third inning of the Phillies’ playoff opener Tuesday night. He watched Rojas lay off high heat on the inner half of the plate from Marlins lefty Jesús Luzardo, then foul off four pitches in the row (the last three with two strikes) before teeing off on a hanging slider.

“I was yelling at the TV, clapping,” Henson said by phone. “The most impressive part was the 3-1 fastball that he pulled foul, way back [to left field]. I was like, ‘He’s in a really good spot. If he’s getting to 98 [mph] in and getting the barrel to it like that, I think he’s going to be all right.’”

A year ago, even at the beginning of this season, Rojas wasn’t waging many at-bats like that. He certainly wasn’t winning them.

Rojas attended the Phillies’ major-league camp in spring training but was among their first cuts. He’s always been an elite defender with questions about his hitting, so once he moved into the minor-league clubhouse, he met with Henson and newly hired hitting coordinator Luke Murton to go over changes to his approach.

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“In the past, I think a lot of people wanted to tell him the ground-ball rate is not going to work and you’ve got to hit the ball in the air more,” Henson said. “We told him, ‘The goal is to hit as many line drives as we can hit because you help us win games when you’re on base. But look, I don’t care if you hit a ground ball. Because you can hit a ball on the ground in the [shortstop] hole and you’re safe.”

Rojas found those concepts to be liberating. Henson and Murton helped him shorten his bat path, and for the first time since he began working with Rojas in the middle of last season, Henson saw him focus less on swing mechanics, more on patterns of how he’s being pitched. He recalled an early-season game in which Rojas recognized that he was getting early-count breaking balls. Rather than waiting for fastballs, he sat on the breaking stuff and swung early.

“It definitely gave me some freedom, what [Henson] said about the ground balls and stuff,” Rojas said after the Phillies worked out Friday. “It took some pressure off my shoulders because you just focus on the game. You just focus on playing. If you don’t have to think about those little [swing-related] things, it makes it easier.”

Rojas was batting .306/.361/.484 for Reading at the All-Star break when Pache, a righty-hitting outfielder with similar skills, began to feel irritation in his elbow. He needed to have a screw from a previous surgery removed. The front office solicited opinions from the player-development staff, including Henson, who made a straightforward recommendation.

“He’s ready to move on,” Henson said, “whether it’s triple A or the big leagues. I just think the whole scenario of what happened in the big leagues, they needed a right-handed bat, outfielder, and he was on the 40-man [roster]. A lot of it comes down to being in the right spot at the right time and being hot, which he was.”

But the Phillies never intended for it to be permanent. At least not this season.

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“No, not at all,” manager Rob Thomson said. “The plan, really, was to just get him some reps up here and get him comfortable, and then, when Pache came back, send him down. But he held his own. He earned it.”

Said Rojas: “Regardless of what other people’s plans may be, my plan has always been to be in the big leagues.”

Thomson isn’t sure when the Phillies decided Rojas was staying put. Rojas’ defense was as otherworldly as advertised. In August alone, he racked up 11 defensive runs saved, according to Sports Info Solutions, and 15 in all, fourth-most among all outfielders despite playing only about 400 innings.

But it was what he did at the plate that changed the team’s plans. Simply, Rojas looked like he belonged. He even got hits against hard-throwing righties such as Pirates closer David Bednar and Strider. If he hadn’t already claimed center field, Rojas locked up the job with his walkoff single against Bednar in the 10th inning of the Phillies’ playoff-clinching victory on Sept. 26.

Rojas’ parents, Juan and Yaniris, were visiting from the Dominican Republic, the first time they watched him play in the United States. With help from the Phillies, Rojas secured visas for them to stay throughout the postseason.

Henson has texted his former pupil at least once a week since July. He drove to Philadelphia for Game 2 of the wild-card series and saw a player overflowing with confidence, even swagger. It comes through when he pops the top buttons on his jersey or stylishly snatches a fly ball.

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“That Philadelphia clubhouse has let him be who he is,” Henson said. “If he looks good, he feels good, and he’s going to play good. I think he has so much more room to grow and get even better, which is scary. Because when those big-league lights turn on, the moments are never too big for him.”

And suddenly, none of it seems crazy anymore.