{"id":577357,"date":"2026-02-17T11:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/577357\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:41:18","slug":"miguel-rojas-reflects-on-life-since-his-world-series-game-7-home-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/577357\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Rojas reflects on life since his World Series Game 7 home run"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHOENIX\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When asked to describe Game 7 of the World Series<\/a> and his place in it more than three months later, veteran infielder Miguel Rojas<\/a> did not hesitate with his answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cGame 7 of the World Series was unbelievable,\u201d Rojas said at his locker inside the Dodgers\u2019<\/a> clubhouse at Camelback Ranch last week. \u201cBecause nobody believed that I was able to hit a home run in the ninth inning with one out, and in that spot. No way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rojas worked the count full, and on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman left a slider over the plate, which Rojas rocketed over the left field bullpen, leaving the 44,000 fans on hand at the Rogers Centre \u2014 and the 51 million viewers watching<\/a> \u2014 completely stunned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the most shocking World Series home runs I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d award-winning baseball writer and Fox Sports commentator Tom Verducci said. \u201cHere I was thinking, \u2018Well, Ohtani\u2019s on deck, so he doesn\u2019t want to walk him.\u2019 Never in my mind did I ever think that he was going to hit a home run. It was even more shocking to me than the Rajai Davis home run off [Aroldis] Chapman in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis\u2019 two-run blast in the 2016 World Series tied Game 7 at 6-6, capping a three-run comeback for the then-Cleveland Indians. It however, occurred in the eighth inning, and came in a loss, as the Cubs snapped their 108-year championship drought in extra innings that night in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

How does Rojas\u2019 tying homer rank historically? Is it on par with Kirk Gibson<\/a>\u2019s pinch-hit, walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in terms of game leverage, it\u2019s right up there in I want to say the top five [greatest hits in the World Series],\u201d Verducci said. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to match Gibby\u2019s for the kind of cinematic quality of it. But, in terms of out-of-the blue, series on the line \u2014 not just game on the line. Kirk Gibson was Game 1. Freddie Freeman off [Nestor] Cortes<\/a> [in 2024] was Game 1. This is down to your last couple of outs in the World Series by a guy who hadn\u2019t hit a home run all year against a right-handed pitcher \u2014 he hit one off of a position player right-handed. The shock value and game-leverage situation, it\u2019s got to be top five; I\u2019m talking about any hit in a World Series game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rojas, who turns 37 next week, has not been known for his power. The middle infielder enters his 13th and final big league season with a total of 57 home runs. As Verducci notes, he hit just seven last season \u2014 six off left-handed pitchers and the one he hit off of a righty came against San Francisco Giants catcher Logan Porter late in a regular season game in which the Dodgers won, 10-0.<\/p>\n

\"Miguel <\/p>\n

Miguel Rojas celebrates as he rounds the bases after he hit a home run to tie the game during the ninth inning of Game 7.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Batting ninth, with Shohei Ohtani on deck, Rojas stepped into the box with the goal of getting to first base. Hoffman started Rojas off with an 86-mph slider off the plate, getting the veteran to chase, putting him behind in the count, 0-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, my mentality was always to get on base,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cI think the first pitch taught me a lot about how the at bat was going to go. I was able to, kind of like, regroup and kind of keep myself in that at-bat and give myself an opportunity to get on base.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoffman proceeded to throw the next two pitches out of the zone, bringing the count to 2-1. He then attacked the strike zone with back-to-back fastballs, both of which Rojas fouled away, into the stands. An up-and-in slider brought the count full.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he hung a slider, and I put a good swing on it,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cI knew a strike was coming. I didn\u2019t know what kind of strike I was gonna see. I was happy to put the barrel on that ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The rest is history. The Dodgers would go on to win in 11 innings, repeating as World Series champions. What came in the immediate aftermath of confetti and champagne, was not something Rojas could have ever expected when he rejoined the Dodgers via trade before the 2023 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little bit more of attention, on the media side, fans and all that,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cIt feels like it was overwhelming with the off-the-field stuff, because I was traveling a lot and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little did he know, Rojas had unintentionally launched himself to stardom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were definitely a couple things that I didn\u2019t have on my radar, like the Latin Grammys<\/a> was one of them,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cI went and shot an episode of \u2018Wheel of Fortune.\u2019 A couple nice things that you don\u2019t even know that you\u2019re playing this game for. But then you got the opportunity to, kind of like, travel and visit the world and go to places that you never expected to go. Really, it was really cool, overwhelming\u2026 but I think it\u2019s something that you don\u2019t have another opportunity to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

After enjoying the ride of the unanticipated media tour, Rojas is back at Dodgers camp, itching to win the final game of the season for the third year in a row in what he has said will be the final season of his career<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I got traded, I can feel like walking into this clubhouse in spring training, the expectations are the same,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re always making the team better. It\u2019s kind of like, right now, it feels like you have to win. It\u2019s not like, \u2018OK, let\u2019s try to win. Let\u2019s try to do our best.\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018We have to win.\u2019 It feels the same as last year and the year before and the year before that. The mentality is \u2018win.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When asked to describe Game 7 of the World Series and his place in it more than three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,19419,39,3931,23794,2335,13452,1165,4332,4333,20515,3394,774,57,3224,4331,8935,4,10336,8527,5509,2512,54085,1319],"class_list":{"0":"post-577357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-count","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-first-base","12":"tag-hoffman","13":"tag-home-run","14":"tag-kirk-gibson","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-dodgers","17":"tag-ladodgers","18":"tag-last-season","19":"tag-line","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-losangelesdodgers","24":"tag-miguel-rojas","25":"tag-mlb","26":"tag-plate","27":"tag-rojas","28":"tag-slider","29":"tag-strike-zone","30":"tag-world-series-game","31":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116085793802570565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}