Johan Rojas isn’t in the lineup for the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday as they try to win their fourth-consecutive game against the New York Mets, but it’s not related to a pair of defensive miscues he had in Wednesday evening’s win.
“No, he’s played three in a row,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said pregame of Rojas. “So we’re on kind of a little bit of a rotation here.”
Thomson penciled in Cristian Pache as the team’s center fielder Thursday, with Brandon Marsh — who has just four hits in 31 at-bats against left-handed pitching this season — in left field, despite veteran southpaw Jose Quintana getting the ball for the Mets.
Rojas made an error on the first play of Wednesday evening’s game, with the heavy rain seeming to affect him. In the eighth inning, he impressively tracked down a ball in right-center field, but wasn’t able to catch it.
A year ago, Rojas burst onto the scene defensively, recording 15 defensive runs saved and six outs above average over 392 innings. He has -4 defensive runs saved and one out above average over 306 innings in 2024. Defensive metrics are far from perfect, and Thomson said he doesn’t tend to look at them, preferring to use his eyes.
But in this case, the eyes and metrics match up. Weather conditions clearly contributed to Rojas not catching the ball in the first inning last night. Still, there have been multiple plays this season — including the eighth-inning one Wednesday — where he seemingly has done the hard part, but failed to do the easy part. It’s notable, because these are plays Rojas seemed to make with relative ease a year ago, even if no one is suggesting they were actually easy.
Thomson offered a nuanced assessment of Rojas’ defense thus far in 2024.
“I think he’s played fine,” Thomson said. “But there’s been some plays that [he’s been] maybe a little bit too aggressive. But I think we have to take it with a grain of salt because he gets to more baseballs than 99% of the outfielders in the game. So, there’s gonna be a chance for more mistakes.”
Does Thomson have any concern that a few mistakes defensively could get into Rojas’ head?
“Not with Rojas, no,” Thomson said with a smile.
To his credit, Rojas was very forthright after the game when asked about the two plays he struggled with defensively.
”Nothing, I just have to catch those balls,” he told reporters through interpreter Diego D’Aniello. “There’s no excuse for me. I’ll just come here tomorrow to work on that and make those plays.”
What’s also been noteworthy is that Rojas has found his bearings after an ice-cold start offensively. That’s not to say that he is going to win a Silver Slugger Award, but Thomson believes the 23-year-old has done enough offensively thus far.
“Yes,” Thomson said without hesitation. “He’s holding his own. He got a bunt down last night … he’s getting some base hits … he’s walking a little bit. So, he’s keeping his head above water.”
These are the topics that probably get overanalyzed when a team is as good as the Phillies have been thus far. At 31-13, the Phillies are on pace to win well over 100 games. They look the part of a legitimate World Series contender.
At the same time, Rojas’ glove is his meal ticket. 99% of outfielders wouldn’t have made the game-saving catch he did to rob NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. of a bases-clearing hit in Game 4 of the NLDS last year. Rojas did, and it essentially put the series on ice. And if the Phillies want to end up on a parade float in late-October, they’re probably going to need Rojas to field like he did a year ago. It seems there is confidence that will happen.
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