NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS DODGERS

October 6, 2024

Miguel Rojas

Dodger Stadium

Los Angeles Dodgers

Pregame 2 Press Conference

Q. How are you feeling physically at this point, especially after that play, the popup in the eighth inning, sort of the type of thing has aggravated it in the past?

MIGUEL ROJAS: I'm feeling as good as I can ask my body to feel. Before the game, we did a bunch of treatment. I mean all the days that we had off kind of helps to be the best way that I can be.

And it's going to be a battle to stay that way through the whole postseason because our goal is to play three more weeks and go the way. But I feel pretty confident I can hold it up and be good for the rest of the time.

Q. Especially concerning how last year's NLDS went, going down early again, how big was it to have sort of that fight back and rally back last night and reshift the tone a little bit?

MIGUEL ROJAS: Kind of going down 3-0 in the first inning is never kind of the plan, especially knowing that we've got Yoshi on the mound and we want him to have a clean inning. We get the opportunity to score first, it's always nice.

But this team continued to show the fight and resiliency of not being out of games. And our mentality as an offense is we're going to score runs anyways, regardless if it's the first, the second or seventh or eighth, we'll continue to fight every single inning to score runs. And our mentality is to score as many runs as possible each game, regardless of the score at that time.

And I think it's been a good adjustment that we make ever since the series, that it was already an important series against Arizona that we took three out of four. I think that's when we started having the mentality as an offense. Regardless of what the score said, we're going to continue to push and continue to fight.

Q. How important is it for the bottom of the lineup to be productive, to the turn the lineup over?

MIGUEL ROJAS: Especially knowing that we have our guys in the top of the lineup, our mentality is going to be grinding pitches out, having good at-bats, regardless of the results, of what the score is going to be during the whole game.

That's going to be 12 at-bats for us there, seven, eight and nine. And if we have good at-bats and we get a lot of pitches from the starting pitcher -- like yesterday, Cease was in trouble just because he threw a lot of pitches, a lot of 3-2 counts, and then Shohei can get a good pitch to hit up in the zone.

I think it's a quality at-bat that you guys got to see from the bottom of the lineup, so the top of the lineup get better pitches to hit and actually do damage because that's what they're here for.

Q. Personally your season was one of your better offensive seasons. What was behind that? Was there an adjustment physical or mental to get you going?

MIGUEL ROJAS: Yeah, both things. I think physically I work a lot to put my swing in a good position. I feel like this is the season that I've been the most consistent out of my 11 years in the big leagues.

And I've got to give credit to the hitting coaches staying on top of me and finding things that helps me. And the mental side of it, knowing that I was going to play a high role at the beginning of the year, I was taking every at-bat like it was my postseason.

And then that leading to when I got the opportunity to play every day and I know I was going to receive more at-bats and more opportunities, I fell like my swing was always in a good place and my mind was ready to actually take on the challenge.

And my mentality was I never want the team to feel that Mookie was absent. I was happy that I had the year that I had.

Q. At one point Dave said he thought maybe the last couple of years that you got caught up chasing slug. Do you think that was the case?

MIGUEL ROJAS: Maybe because I had success with a couple homers and maybe 30 doubles in one season or whatnot, and I feel like I could have become that player, like a little bit more of a complete package on the slug side and the hitting side.

I always wanted to strive for better results. Year by year I wanted to be a better, complete shortstop. And I feel like when I finally realized what kind of player I was overall and what can I bring to the table to a winning team, I stopped, like, chasing for big numbers and I started focusing more on what I need to do to help the team win on a daily basis.

And I know it sounds like what everybody says, everybody wants to do whatever is best for the team, but I find out that my defense and my production on offense, just getting the good at-bats is going to help a team win.

Q. Going back to the conversation about the bottom of the order, you talked about just the quality of at-bats. But was there a conversation amongst you guys? It seems like with (indiscernible) talking to Gavin Lux and some others, this mindset of a hyena approach of sorts. Can you just take us behind the door of where that came from?

MIGUEL ROJAS: Yeah, that series in Arizona, like I was mentioning, it happened like a month ago. We decided to be a little bit more aggressive. We as a team, as an offensive team, we thought every time we were behind in the games we kind of stopped and kind of shut it down and started getting at-bats and taking pitches and not being aggressive.

I think that put us kind of on our heels. And we decided not to be on our heels anymore. We want to be on the aggression every single time.

And knowing that we can always trust our eyes on pitches outside of the zone. I think our team controls the zone really well, but sometimes we try to control the zone way too much that we're not aggressive.

I feel like a day like yesterday kind of tells the whole story behind the aggression and kind of being on the attack every time because we're 3-0, but we're never out of the game because we're still aggressive. We're not taking pitches. We're not giving them free strikes and we're ready to go.

And they know it. If they throw the ball in the strike zone, it's going to be a fight. It's going to be a swing.

With that being said, I feel like that's the mentality of the bottom of the order too; we're not going to be afraid of swinging the bat. But at the same time we know our abilities to kind of control the strike zone. And that's kind of like the story behind it.

Q. Is that something that as you guys have looked back at previous postseasons, maybe some of the woes of the offense, maybe you guys were feeling too tentative at the plate? And how much do you think maybe being more aggressive overall as a team can help generate more opportunities in this kind of environment?

MIGUEL ROJAS: We all know in the postseason it's not easy to score runs. And to be able to score runs you have to create momentum.

Momentum can be created by many different things: A walk, a long at-bat where you can make this pitcher; don't have any holes in the lineup. We're talking about, again, the bottom of the lineup, middle of the lineup, top of the lineup. It doesn't matter; you have to do your job to make this pitcher kind of work on every guy. Like, you can't be an easy out on this lineup or you're going to be out.

So for me that's the mentality that we have. Everybody kind of, like, pushing in the same direction and kind of pulling for the same purpose, which is being a really good and strong offense, so we can aggressive and continue to do whatever we need to do, even if we're behind in the score.

Q. What have you seen playing behind Jack Flaherty the last two-plus months?

MIGUEL ROJAS: It's been fun to watch because he knows how to change the speeds. And that's kind of what motivates me a lot more.

Throughout this postseason, for him, I think it's going to be a good challenge for the other team to kind of like stay with the change of speed. The guy can actually run his fastball up to 95, but he changes his speed on the breaking balls.

I think that style of pitching, it's not there anymore. And that's an old-school guy kind of pitching. And I really enjoyed watching him pitch.

I remember when I faced him taking a pick off that, but I feel like he's kind of that old-school pitcher, that in these kind of games are going to help a lot, and it's been fun to watch every since he got here.

Q. Did you face him when he was with the Cardinals? If so, does he look more like that old version of himself?

MIGUEL ROJAS: Yes, that's exactly what I think about Jack. Fastball is explosive. Like, he can run it up to 98 or whatever.

But right now, I can see like three different shapes of the breaking ball. I can see two-seam, four-seam fastball. He's understanding the game I'm sure with maturity and with time, experience.

Playing behind him, always for me as a shortstop, as a defensive first guy, I always like to play behind guys who they know what they're doing. They throw the ball where they're supposed to be throwing, and it's a little bit easier for us as a defense to know where the ball is going to be hit.