TORONTO — The Los Angeles Dodgers are loaded with future Hall of Famers, MVPs, All-Stars and the greatest players on earth.
Yet, it was the heroics of 36-year-old journeyman Miguel Rojas who had the Dodgers celebrating wildly into the night Saturday, becoming the first team in 25 years to win back-to-back World Series championships.
The Dodgers pulled off a dramatic 5-4, 11-inning Game 7 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Will Smith’s two-out home run off Shane Bieber, but it was Rojas’ ninth-inning homer that will forever be remembered.
The stage was all set for the Blue Jays to end their 32-year drought when Rojas, who had not played in the World Series until Game 6, stepped to the plate with one out in the ninth inning and Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman on the mound.
Rojas, who had hit only two home runs since the All-Star break, worked Hoffman to a full count, and then sent Hoffman’s slider just over the left-field wall.
It was one of the most unlikely home runs in World Series by the man who is universally beloved in the Dodgers’ clubhouse for his veteran leadership and being a mentor for Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts.
And, for an encore, when the Blue Jays rallied in the bottom of the ninth, loading the bases with one out, Rojas speared Daulton Vargas’ bouncer, and off-balance, threw a perfect strike to the plate, just nailing Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
Then, of course, there was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was the World Series MVP.
He won Games 2, 6 and 7, and after throwing 96 pitches in Game 6, and came back in relief in Game 7, closing it out with 2 ⅔ scoreless innings, going 5-1 this postseason.
“He just became the guy, the horse, kind of like everybody knew he was going to be,’’ Rojas said. “We got a lot of stats on Japan, that he did this for a long time there. We know he came to a different league to face different hitters and all that and last year was kind of an adjustment for him. And even though he was adjusting, he won the World Series, and he was the guy for us.
“This year he took it to a next level.’
The Dodgers are the first team since the 1998-2000 Yankees to win back-to-back titles, and the first National League team to pull off the feat since the Cincinnati Reds 1975-76 “Big Red Machine’’ team.
It was certainly a heart-breaker for the Blue Jays, who gave the Dodgers everything they had.
The sellout crowd of 44,713 had been screaming since Bo Bichette’s third-inning three-run homer that was about to be remembered in Blue Jays folklore, with the lead lasting right up to Rojas’ homer, the first game-tying, ninth-inning inning homer in World Series history.
Bichette’s homer not only knocked Dodgers starter Shohei Ohtani out of the game, yielding five hits and three runs in just 2 ⅓ innings, but brought back memories not only of Joe Carter’s World Series’ clinching homer in 1993, but also of Kirk Gibson’s pinch-hit homer for the Dodgers in the 1988 World Series.
Bichette wasn’t hobbling to the plate like Gibson, but he also was playing on just one good leg. He sustained a deep left knee sprain Sept. 6, and was out the rest of the regular season, the first two rounds of the playoffs, and not activated until the World Series.
He wasn’t going to let his free agency affect his decision to return.
Sure, he was taking perhaps a $200 million risk or greater by returning if he reinjured his knee, but this is the World Series.
This is the organization in which he has poured out his heart and soul. He wasn’t missing this.
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“I mean, it’s the World Series, so none of that stuff really matters, to be honest,’ Bichette said. “I’ll put it all out there for this. So there was no tough decisions in it. I mean this is a no-brainer. …
“I’m super grateful that everybody believed in me to be able to come out here and produce. It’s been an incredible journey. I’ve obviously grown up here in so many different ways.
“I will look around the clubhouse and see what we did right and I’ll learn as much as I can from what this group does on its field, off the field, and see if we can do it again.’
It will be a painful winter for the Blue Jays, but when they sit back, they can be proud of what they accomplished.
“We’ve raised the standard and expectation of this organization a hell of a lot this year,’’ Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “I think as a manager, you always want a team that any other team, any other coaching staff, any other person that is in the game you can look at a team and say, that’s what they stand for and that’s what is important to them, and I feel like we’ve accomplished that this year.
“So that’s what I look at. There’s so many moments throughout the regular season, postseason, that you’re going to remember forever, but the fact that this group, a huge group, players, coaches, front office, support staff, have taken the Toronto Blue Jays standard and expectation forward is something that I’m most proud about.
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