Miguel Rojas was among the offensive contributors in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday. The veteran went 2-for-4 with an RBI double, which was his second extra-base hit in the last three games.
Rojas is in the midst of his worst offensive season, but has quietly heated up of late, going 6-for-his-last-20 with three doubles and two RBI across six games. “I feel like I’ve been staying within myself, which is hitting line-drive base hits. That’s what I’ve been focusing on,” Rojas explained.
“I know it hasn’t been the kind of season I was expecting for me offensively and I know I’m capable of more. There’s still another half of the season to go. I feel like if I can get on track, I’m going to be a little more sustainable offensively and help the team on both sides of the ball, which is my main focus as a shortstop.
“I know I can catch the ball, but I feel like offensively, I can produce too. It’s nice to get a couple hits today and see the ball drop in the gap. I’m going to try to continue to do that and hitting my line drives up the middle, and let the slug and the power come.”
Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, J.D. Martinez and Will Smith rightly come to mind when thinking about the Dodgers lineup. However, the bottom third of the order has been productive as well, particularly with Jason Heyward and David Peralta regularly coming through with big hits of late.
“I feel like we have our All-Stars, which are at the top of the lineup, but we can’t really count on them every single day. They’re going to have days where teams are probably going to pitch around them, or they’re not going to have a good offensive night,” Rojas began.
“When you see guys like Peralta, J-Hey, Miggy (Vargas) getting on base, and then we all produce from the bottom of the lineup, we make it a little bit deeper. I think that’s the kind of team that we are. We are really deep.
“Overall, we had a really good offensive approach against Mitch Keller and we feel really good going into the series after beating him. Hopefully now we can get a couple more wins going into the All-Star break.”
Peralta, Heyward, Miguel Vargas and Rojas combined to go 5-for-15 with three doubles and three RBI in the Dodgers’ win over the Pirates on Monday.
Miguel Rojas benefitting from being injury-free
Part of Rojas’ struggles this season can be attributed to the injuries he has dealt with. After overcoming separate bouts of calf, foot, groin, hamstring and neck trouble, the 34-year-old is beginning to feel more like himself.
“Yeah, it’s been huge,” Rojas said of being injury-free. “Four games into the season, my leg was bothering me. My neck was a pain a couple weeks ago, but now I feel 100% with my legs under me.
“I feel like playing without thinking about any sort of injury or making something worse for the long haul, that’s the kind of player you guys are going to see every night. Kudos to the team giving me off days her and there to keep myself fresh. It’s been a huge benefit for me.”
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