TORONTO – When the ball left his bat, soaring up and over the Rogers Centre playing surface and forever into baseball lore, it only took a split-second to realize that Miguel Rojas, stunningly, had a Kirk Gibson moment.
Hit a ninth-inning, game-turning home run in the World Series for a franchise so steeped in history as the Los Angeles Dodgers, and your life will change forever – whether you’re on your way to winning the 1988 MVP award, or simply grinding out the 12th season of a career that’s included zero All-Star appearances and a lifetime batting average of .260.
Yet Rojas’s moment was far more Gibsonesque than any of the 44,713 fans at Rogers Centre or the tens of millions watching across the globe knew.
As it turns out, Rojas nearly couldn’t play World Series Game 7 on Nov. 1, having dislocated a rib celebrating his last, great moment: Completing a game-ending double play in Game 6 the night before, prompting teammates Mookie Betts and Kiké Hernández to leap in his arms.
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He reported to the ballpark nearly seven hours before game time for treatment. Took a significant amount of medicine, including a cortisone shot just before the game that his doctor said would last him six hours.
And then, after hitting in the batting cage and completing most of his pregame routine, finally gave the go-ahead to manager Dave Roberts that he was good to go, that Roberts could start him a second consecutive night to inject life into a sagging lineup and Rojas’s esprit de corps into the infield.
The club’s medical staff put Rojas back together again. And then Rojas saved the Dodgers’ season.
Two outs from elimination and trailing the Toronto Blue Jays by one run in the top of the ninth inning, Rojas – who hit just seven home runs all season – battled Jeff Hoffman for six pitches before the Toronto closer gave him something to handle: A hanging slider in Rojas’s hot zone.
The stocky utility infielder put a gorgeous swing on the ball, sending it out over the Blue Jays bullpen and into the glove of a fan wholly disconsolate by the time he reeled it in.
In the Dodgers’ dugout: Bedlam.
The score was tied and two innings later, just like their Game 3, 18-inning triumph, the Dodgers’ inevitable game-winning homer came, this time off the bat of Will Smith to provide a 5-4 victory in 11 innings, and consecutive Dodgers World Series championships.
Rojas was around for both of them, a valued member of their title squads for his ability to say the right thing at the right time, to mentor a younger player, to serve as a de facto coach for Mookie Betts when the now four-time World Series champion transitioned from right field to shortstop.
But Series-saving home run? Well, Rojas views it simply as part of his arc as a Dodger, one he’s confident will have another rendition come 2026, when the 36-year-old plays what he has said will be his final season.
“I think this is the end of a great story. For my chance to tell everybody what I mean to the organization,” Rojas tells USA TODAY Sports. “Not many people know what happened behind the scenes, but I’m happy I got to hit the homer tonight. And help the team defensively yesterday.
“I can tell you that I’m here to serve others and be there for my teammates. But at the end of the day, if I can have a moment like this, it’s great.”
It’s been 37 years since Gibson, hobbled by injuries to both knees, took just one World Series at-bat for the 1988 Dodgers against the Oakland Athletics, perhaps the most documented plate appearance in modern history: The physical treatment, the clandestine batting cage session, the signal to manager Tommy Lasorda that yes, he was good to go.
And finally, the ill-fated backdoor slider peerless closer Dennis Eckersley threw Gibson, who, almost all arms, lifted it over the wall in right field for a two-run homer, a Game 1 walk-off job before Eckersley himself coined that phrase four years later.
This time, the circumstances were different. Rojas played 10 innings of defense, making a fantastic play in the bottom of the ninth, the Blue Jays 90 feet from winning the World Series and rendering his homer a footnote.
With the infield in, he one-hopped a grounder hit by Daulton Varsho and, with pinch-runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa chugging home, fired to catcher Will Smith to choke off the run.
The Dodgers escaped the inning. Rojas did not feel good.
“I felt it. Not gonna say that’s why (the play) was so close,” he says. “I was on my knees a little bit after that play. I felt it a little bit.”
He took one more at-bat in the top of the 11th, grounding out to third, and once again felt severe pain, which he described as arm-numbing and potentially cutting short his breath. Two batters later, Smith’s home run off Shane Bieber gave the Dodgers the lead for good.
And Rojas finally relented, telling Roberts he could go no more. Rookie Hyeseong Kim was on the field for the bottom of the 11th and the celebratory moment on the infield.
So be it. Rojas’s work was done.
“I think it was too late to take another shot, to calm it down,” says Rojas. “I took one before the game. The doctor told me I could do one every six hours.
“But I didn’t want to put myself in that situation where we already had the lead and we got another second baseman who is capable.”
No worries. The Dodgers know who Rojas is, and what he means, not just when the lights are brightest but more often when it’s the dog days, or the dark days, of a bid to repeat as champions and things go awry.
“It couldn’t have been a better guy. Oh my gosh,” says first baseman Max Muncy, part of the Dodgers’ cabal of three-time titlists in the past five years. “I mean, you’re talking about the ultimate team guy. He is willing to do whatever it takes to help this team win.
“When he wasn’t getting his playing time, he went to the coaches and said hey, how can I help out? They talked to him and he did everything they asked him to do.
“For him to get that home run to tie it up, brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.”
Rojas had taken 51 postseason at-bats in his career. And had just one extra-base hit – a homer for the 2020 Marlins.
This one was a little bit bigger, one that Roberts felt was karma, working in a positive direction.
“He deserved that moment,” says Roberts.
Says first baseman Freddie Freeman: ‘When you play the game right, when you treat people right, when you’re a teammate like Miguel is, the game honors you. To come up with that moment when you’re 36 years old, when you’re saying you’re going to retire after next season, to have that moment in World Series Game 7?
‘Just absolutely incredible.’
For Rojas, the hourglass is running out of sand. He hopes a Dodgers reunion is in order for his 2026 swan song; it is not hard to envision a longer-term future between de facto coach and an organization that clearly holds him in high regard.
“Doc has been great. A friend to me for three years now,” says Rojas. “I’ll never be more proud and satisfied of the way this organization has been treating me the last three years.”
On a crisp night in Canada, he carved out his permanent space within it, a legend forever thanks to the right swing at the most important time.