Dodgers’ Miguel Rojas ‘feeling better’ but planning on offseason surgery

LOS ANGELES — There’s nothing like some time off work to make you feel better.

“To be honest with you, I feel better right now than when I was playing in September,” said Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas, who was left off the National League Championship Series roster due to an adductor injury. “In September my leg was really bothering me. I played through it, and I pushed everything that I can, I did everything that I can to push through September because I knew the team was really close to making it to the playoffs. And I feel better right now.”

Rojas said it was “tough” to sit back and watch the NLCS go on without him.

“You want to be on the field. You want to contribute. You want to be in the lineup and helping the team win on the field,” he said. “But I feel like, to win games and to be a championship team, you have to kind of understand that you’ve got to trust your teammates, you’ve got to trust your team … because at the point that I was with the injury, I wasn’t going to help the team on the field as much.”

Rojas said he wasn’t sure until the Dodgers’ final workouts on Wednesday and Thursday that he was going to be back on the roster for the World Series. But he was added to the roster and started at shortstop in Game 2 against New York Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon.

“To be honest with you, it wasn’t easy. I wasn’t sure completely until the last day that I ran the bases. I took ground balls at shortstop. I took my at-bats during the sim games that we did,” Rojas said.

“Up until that point, I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it. With this injury being day-to-day, sometimes I feel really good, sometimes I feel like I can’t really walk. So that’s kind of the balance that I’ve been going through this last month and a half.”

Rojas said he will undergo sports hernia surgery to address the injury as soon as he can after the Dodgers’ postseason run ends. Rojas’ current contract includes a club option for 2025 at a $5 million salary (or a $1 million buyout). Rojas said he has talked with some players who had similar surgeries – including teammate Kiké Hernandez, Starling Marte of the New York Mets and former Yankee Derek Jeter who is part of the FOX broadcast team covering the World Series.

“I know I have to have it. As soon as possible is better because I’m going to have a normal offseason, and I’m looking forward to playing a couple more years,” Rojas said.

“I heard you’re back doing baseball activities in a month, so three to four weeks or something like that. With the offseason that we have, my goal is to be ready for next spring training, and I’m pretty sure I will be.”

PITCHING PLANS

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Walker Buehler will start Game 3 at Yankee Stadium. That makes a bullpen game most likely for Game 4.

By starting Buehler in Game 3, the right-hander will be an option to start a potential Game 7 on four days’ rest.

“We love Walker in big games,” Roberts said. “The road isn’t going to faze him. It also allows him potentially to be available for a Game 7 too.”

The Yankee will start right-hander Clarke Schmidt in Game 3 and right-hander Luis Gil in Game 4.

INSTANT REPLAY

Roberts said he went home after the dramatic ending to Game 1 and – watched the dramatic finish to Game 1, which ended on Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning.

“I got home, and then my wife, my son, my mother-in-law, we did some replay thing that you can do that I don’t know how to do,” Roberts said. “My son put it up, and you can kind of watch the quick highlights. So I saw all that stuff. It was pretty spectacular.”

Roberts said he made a point of checking in with his players before Game 2 to make sure there would be no hangover from the Game 1 drama.

“We celebrated the heck out of last night, as I thought we should have. But today it’s a new day, and guys are back to work,” Roberts said.

“I do think there’s some kind of momentum, excitement that will carry over to tonight’s game. But as far as just sitting back on last night’s game, that’s over.”

GIRL DAD

When Will Smith’s first daughter was born, it was the morning of Game 4 of the 2022 NL Division Series between the Dodgers and Padres. Smith drove home to be with his wife, Cara, for the birth and then was taken by helicopter back to San Diego in time for the game.

His second daughter had better timing. Cara gave birth to another girl on Tuesday during the off days before the start of the World Series.

“It’s been a week, a great week – playing the World Series, having our daughter,” Smith said Saturday. “She timed it perfectly when she came, so I got to spend a couple days home just being dad.”

MUST-SEE TV

The Dodgers’ dramatic Game 1 victory averaged 15.2 million viewers on Fox, Fox Deportes, Univision and streaming, making it the most watched World Series game in five years.

It was only the fourth time in 36 World Series games since 2018 that the audience has cracked 15 million. The last one before Friday was the seventh and deciding game in the 2019 series, when Washington’s 6-2 victory over Houston for its first championship averaged 23 million.

“Ratings were really good last night,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said before Game 2 on Saturday. “I see this matchup as an opportunity to kind of amplify everything we’ve been working on for the last few years. Focus on the players, trying to grow the game into a more national product, international growth, young people. And, you know, when you get a stage like this, it’s an opportunity to take a step forward.”

According to Nielsen, the audience peaked at 17.8 million from the 10th inning until the game’s conclusion.

It was a 62% increase over last year’s first game between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks. The Rangers’ 6-5 victory over the Diamondbacks in 11 innings averaged 9.35 million, and was the least-viewed Game 1 on record.

Friday’s game was the most-watched Game 1 since the Dodgers’ 3-1 victory over the Houston Astros in 2017 averaged 15.33 million. It also was the most-viewed Friday broadcast on Fox since Game 3 in 2017 (15.68 million).

The game had a 19.1 rating and 58 share in Los Angeles and 13.2 rating and 37 share in New York.

The rating is the percentage of television households tuned in. The share refers to a percentage of the audience viewing it at the time. Manfred said he is hoping to see the ratings from Japan in the next day or two. It was early Saturday afternoon in Japan for Game 1.

ALSO

The 2024 Players Choice award winners were announced this week and Shohei Ohtani was named the National League’s Most Outstanding Player. Ohtani lost out to Yankees slugger Aaron Judge for the overall Player of the Year award. …

Roberts said Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty dealt with some hamstring tightness during his 5⅓ innings but “I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal” going forward.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.