Rojas, Smith homers soared into the Rogers Centre stands, but a couple of plays here and there might have changed the Game 7 and World Series result. Nevertheless, Dodgers Nation celebrates another World Series championship.
Happy Victory Sunday morning, Dodgers fans. Are you pinching yourselves after watching Miguel Rojas and Will Smith put on their hero's capes and send the Los Angeles Dodgers to a second straight World Series championship?
That'd be understandable. Of course, some Dodgers fans might be looking for a Bloody Mary or two after some celebratory champagne late Saturday night.
Rojas and Smith - not Shohei Ohtani, not Freddie Freeman, not Teoscar Hernández - drilled two of the most memorable home runs in World Series history on Saturday night. Rojas' homer in the top of the ninth inning, with the Toronto Blue Jays just mere outs away from winning it all, tied things up at 4-4.
Catch this tidbit about Rojas from excellent Los Angeles Times Dodgers beat reporter Jack Harris. It adds just another level of context behind Rojas and his play on the field.
"In here: Before his Game 7 heroics, Miguel Rojas aggravated an intercostal/rib injury in Game 6’s ending/celebration," Harris wrote. "He woke up in pain Saturday, and had trouble lifting his arm — but felt good enough by game time to play, and ultimately saved the Dodgers season w/ his tying HR".
Smith, the tough-as-nails Dodgers catcher, sent a Jeff Hoffman pitch high and over the left-field wall to give the Dodgers a 5-4 lead in the top of the 11th inning. As it turns out, that was the deciding factor as the Blue Jays could not rally.
"You dream of those moments," Smith said after the game, according to MLB.com. "Extra innings, put your team ahead? Yeah, I’ll remember that one forever."
But Game 7 was, in some cases, a game of inches. Smith got a forceout at home plate as Toronto's Isiah Kiner-Falefa slid into home plate on a key play. Television replays showed that Smith's left foot was just touching home plate for the forceout. But Smith's foot also looked like it hovered near home plate for a little bit.
Kiner-Falefa, if he'd gotten a bigger lead at third base, probably would have scored the game-deciding run for Toronto. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.
Go back to Game 6 for a minute and the deciding play there. Dodgers left fielder Kiké Hernández made a bang-bang play with one out in the bottom of the ninth. After catching a ball, which he later said that he lost in the lights for a minute, Hernández had no time to lose. He got the ball out of his glove and threw a strike to Rojas at second base, forcing Addison Barger out for the third and final out.
If Barger had not strayed so far away from second base, then that entire inning might have ended differently.
Of course, all this is moot now as the Dodgers won Game 7 and can now get ready for a World Series championship parade and party in Los Angeles on Monday.
"We knew it was gonna be a tough game, but that’s the beauty of our team," shortstop Mookie Betts, who provided the key two-run single in Friday night's Game 6 win, said. "Like, it doesn’t really matter. We don’t care about tough games, we know how to win tough games. We know how to win blowouts. We know how to win, and we did today."
Win they did indeed. But any talk about Game 7 has to include Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who won three games in the 2025 World Series and captured Series MVP honors. Yamamoto came on for 2 2/3 innings of relief.
Back to the game of inches chatter for a minute. If Yamamoto throws too many pitches over the heart of the plate, then the Blue Jays are partying. That, obviously, didn't happen. Yet making key pitches in a clutch situation is, in some ways, a game of inches, too.
"When I started in the bullpen before I went in, to be honest, I was not really sure if I could pitch up there to my best ability," Yamamoto said post-game through an interpreter. "But as I started getting warmed up, because I started making a little bit of an adjustment, and then I started thinking I can go in and do my job."
Oh, he did his job. He did his job throughout the entire series, leaving Blue Jays hitters shaking their heads and fists in the air at the same time.
But the Dodgers have earned some well-deserved rest and, of course, a party and celebration reserved for champions.
The team will face some decisions in the offseason.
In due time, Dodgers fans. In due time.