A Johan Rojas robbery, a sweep of the Dodgers, and the Phillies roll on as the summer’s biggest act

It was there, all of it: three days worth of energy, the Schwarbombs, the standing O’s, the Shohei Ohtani swings-and-misses, a thick soup of electrical charge building into a bolt from the midsummer sky. A series like this, a sweep like this, it needed a moment. In the top of the seventh, it came.

You wonder if they saw it, the streak of blue. That is how Johan Rojas would have appeared. If he appeared at all.

He came as lightning does, with a crack. The ball jumped off the bat with a trajectory so straight that it barely seemed ballistic. Destination: left-center wall. One out, one on, one-time National League favorites down three runs to an opponent that has never paid much credence to odds. Enrique Hernández sprinted out of the box, counting the bases. Chris Taylor sprinted toward second, his eyes on home.

There was the ball. There was the wall. Then, there was Rojas.

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He did not arrive so much as he materialized. One moment he was here. The next, he was there, soaring like the Jumpman logo, his legs moving so fast you couldn’t tell when they left the ground.

The shortest distance from Point A to Point B is not a straight line.

It is Johan Rojas.

“Like I’ve always said to every hitter that hits a ball toward me,” the Phillies center fielder said after he helped close out the Dodgers with a 5-1 win on Thursday night. “If you want a hit, you better hit it out.”

The Phillies’ sweep of their chief NL rival heading into the weekend was a lot of things. It was a victory, first and foremost. Three of them, another trio of notches in the left-hand column. They entered this weekend’s series against the Athletics on pace for 106, with a remarkable 6½-game cushion in the hunt for home-field advantage.

It was a statement. Or, rather, it was a punctuation, the exclamation point on a three-game sweep of their closest playoff rivals.

Above all else, it was a reminder. Of what the Phillies are. Of how they became that way.

“It’s a big test for us to see where we stand right now, and I think we held our own,” left fielder Brandon Marsh said after Thursday night’s sweep-clinching victory. “I’d be lying if I said we didn’t wake up a little different for games like this.”

Rojas is the embodiment of it. Of them. A lot has happened in the eight months since he saved Game 4 of the National League division series by robbing Ronald Acuña Jr. of a bases-clearing double. He made his first opening-day roster. He lost his job. He returned to the majors as the next man up.

Yet, there he was, standing in the middle of the Phillies clubhouse, surrounded by lockers with name-brand name plates, speaking as if moments like his are preordained.

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“That’s why we are all so good here,” Rojas said. “We just go out to win games, to catch balls, to get hits, anything that helps the club wins. That’s what’s so incredible. Everyone loves their job here, everyone loves being here … That’s something that I love about being here.”

Every baseball season is an epic. You know the plot points are going to come. You watch each night waiting for them to arrive. From the early days of spring training, the debate has raged whether a lineup can shoulder Rojas’ sub-.600 OPS in exchange for his defensive prowess. It is a worthy debate, and one that may never be settled. But catches like Thursday’s have a way of sticking in the mind.

“He’s electric,” manager Rob Thomson said.

The electricity is the thing. It is what makes Rojas belong. The Phillies are an electric team. They have been for two years now. The hits always seem to come. The catches. The strikeouts. They are a team built for the moment. The moment has arrived.