MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers touched down, shook off the NLDS, and got right back to work. Sunday felt like a reset without losing the edge. Veteran infielder Miguel Rojas met with reporters and laid out exactly where this club’s head is at.
Rojas started with the theme of togetherness and why the last 48 hours mattered. He said, “Something that we learned last year was the power of being together and making this the most important days and weeks of our year.” He framed October as a different calendar. “We all know that we play a really long regular season where you’re going to go through ups and downs, but these couple weeks are for the boys,” he said, adding that the Dodgers have taken it to heart. “Everything that we do these last couple weeks of the year is among ourselves and we’re trying to get any kind of edge we can get from being together, being around each other, talking about the game, talking about situations that might happen.”
The group watched Cubs–Brewers during Saturday’s workout. It wasn’t just background noise. It was homework. Rojas explained, “We were there preparing, having fun and hanging around, but at the same time we were talking among each other about the game and what we’re going to expect.” He noted that the opponent was still unknown at that point, but the process didn’t change. “That’s the point of being together every single day. We’re not taking days off,” he said. “We just landed and we made a decision that we’re going to sacrifice a lot of our time outside the field with the families and we’re going to be here 100 percent of our time to try to do something really special. I think we all deserve it, and the organization and the city, and we’re going to go for it.”
The Brewers swept the Dodgers in July. That happened. The room remembers, and Rojas didn’t dance around it. “The difference is that our guys are healthy,” he said. “Everybody knows our pitching staff has been carrying us for the last two months of the year and they’ve been throwing the ball really well, the starting pitching.” He contrasted the midsummer roster with the one lining up now. “I remember when we came here we didn’t have Kiké, we didn’t have Blake, we didn’t have a couple of the guys and we were playing a little short on the bench and the back end of the bullpen and the starting pitching,” he said. “Right now we’re in a really good place to go head-to-head with the best of the National League.”
He gave the Brewers proper credit while keeping eyes forward. “They showed the whole league and the world that they were the best team during the regular season and they deserve it,” he said. “We didn’t play good against them in the regular season, but we have another chance. Here we are, the last two teams standing in the National League, and we’re looking forward to this challenge.”
If you’ve watched Milwaukee the past few years, you know what’s coming. Pressure. Motion. Contact. Rojas spelled it out. “They’re a team that’s aggressive,” he said. “They’re going to run. They bunt. They do the little things. They don’t strike out much. They put the ball in play.” The answer isn’t panic or reinvention. It’s attention. “You’ve got to be ready for every pitch, every out, every opportunity,” he said. “Our preparation wouldn’t change. We are who we are as a team. We just know that beforehand we’re going to have our meetings and our conversations and we’re going to be ready to go.”
He pointed to Milwaukee’s relief corps as a hinge point. “We all understand what kind of team they have over there,” he said. “They play off the energy of the game, the momentum, they take charge of that and they have pretty good pitching in the back end of the bullpen. So we’re going to be ready for it.” The scouting work is already in. “We gathered a lot of information during the regular season,” he added, a line that landed like a quiet promise that little details matter in a seven-game fight.
There was one more thread. Respect. When asked about his old Miami teammate Christian Yelich, Rojas couldn’t help but crack a smile. “He’s one of my favorites,” he said. “He’s a captain himself over there. I know nobody, not many people, talk about him being a captain. He’s just a veteran player that helps everybody run the clubhouse and the team.” Rojas brought up top prospect Jackson Chourio to underline how that leadership translates. “I know Jackson Chourio really close, we’re from Venezuela, we’re with the same agency, and I know how highly he speaks about Yelich,” he said. “When we played together in Miami, he wasn’t a guy who was going to talk a lot, but he was going to show you through preparation and work ethic.” It was sincere and straight from the game. “I’m happy for him because he’s getting the opportunity to be on this stage and he always showed me he was a guy you can follow because he’s a great leader,” Rojas said.
So that’s the frame. Stay together. Trust the arms. Match Milwaukee’s relentlessness with your own. Rojas kept it practical and kept it about the room. “We’re going to sacrifice a lot of our time outside the field,” he said earlier, making it clear this is a head-down, all-hands stretch. “We’re going to be here 100 percent of our time to try to do something that is really special.”
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