Miguel Rojas Expected Back for the NLCS as the Dodgers Set Their Roster for Milwaukee

LOS ANGELES

The Dodgers don't open the NLCS until Sunday night in Milwaukee, but the biggest question hanging over their roster got a likely answer Saturday: Miguel Rojas is expected back.

Manager Dave Roberts told reporters — including The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya — that Rojas is likely to be on the NLCS roster after a cortisone injection helped loosen up the back he injured during the Division Series against Atlanta, per MLB Trade Rumors. It's the news the Dodgers were hoping for and the Brewers weren't, and it fills in one of the last open spots on a roster that now has a shape.

The series itself needs no extra selling. The Dodgers are the two-time defending World Series champions chasing a three-peat. The Brewers won an MLB-best 103 games this season and hold home-field advantage. And it's a rematch of last year's NLCS, which the Dodgers swept on their way to beating the Toronto Blue Jays in seven games. Game 1 is Sunday night in Milwaukee: Tarik Skubal for Los Angeles against Brewers fireballer Jacob Misiorowski, per ClutchPoints.

Rojas's road back

Rojas's back gave out at the worst time. He didn't play in NLDS Game 1, but drew the start in Game 2 against left-hander Ray Kerr and again in Game 3 against lefty Chris Sale — the Dodgers leaned on him against southpaws all season, per MLB Trade Rumors. Then, in the eighth inning of Game 3, he was pulled mid-plate-appearance. Tommy Edman finished the at-bat and took over at second base. Rojas was unavailable off the bench for the Game 4 clincher.

The cortisone injection did what rest alone hadn't: loosened the area enough that Roberts now expects him on the NLCS roster, per Ardaya's reporting relayed by MLB Trade Rumors.

What role he'll play is another question. The Dodgers rode Rojas against left-handed pitching this season — 162 plate appearances against southpaws compared to 90 against righties — and he hit .293 with four home runs when facing lefties while scuffling to a .505 OPS against right-handers, per MLB Trade Rumors. Milwaukee is starting righties in the first two games: Misiorowski in Game 1 and Logan Henderson in Game 2. Robert Gasser is the only left-hander in the mix as a potential Brewers starter; righty Dustin May is the other option.

That means Rojas is probably not starting Game 1 or 2. But the Brewers have several lefties in the bullpen — Aaron Ashby, JoJo Romero, DL Hall among them — and Rojas could get pinch-hit chances late in games. In October, that's a real role. And nobody in that clubhouse needs reminding what Rojas can do in October: he was one of the heroes of last year's World Series, tying Game 7 with a ninth-inning home run off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman when the Dodgers looked finished. They won in 11 innings. He has two World Series rings and 23 games of playoff experience, per MLB Trade Rumors.

The roster math

Roberts also revealed hints about how the NLCS roster will be built, and there's a shift coming. The Dodgers will go with 13 position players and 13 pitchers — they carried 14 hitters and 12 pitchers for the NLDS, per The Athletic's Katie Woo via MLB Trade Rumors.

Roberts said the team would add a reliever who could cover two to three innings, with Justin Wrobleski and Emmet Sheehan cited as potential options, according to Woo's reporting. It's a tell about how the Dodgers expect the series to unfold: short starts happen in October, and having a multi-inning bridge arm matters more than a 14th bat when your bench already has Rojas, Tommy Edman, and Kiké Hernández.

Skubal vs. Misiorowski

Skubal starts the opener — a two-time Cy Young Award winner getting the ball in Game 1 — with Yoshinobu Yamamoto slated for Game 2, per ClutchPoints. Skubal was brilliant in his Dodgers postseason debut, striking out seven over six innings in the Division Series.

Misiorowski, the Brewers' Game 1 starter, went 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts in the regular season and is likely to take home this season's National League Cy Young Award, per ClutchPoints. He's the fireballer tasked with quieting a lineup that includes Shohei Ohtani — who's mired in a postseason slump — Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Teoscar Hernández.

The Dodgers' rotation depth is the envy of the sport: Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki are all in the mix behind Skubal and Yamamoto, per the morning's big-picture NLCS preview.

A rematch with history

Last October, the Dodgers swept the Brewers out of the NLCS and went on to win it all. Milwaukee hasn't forgotten — and this time the Brewers aren't the underdog story. They won 103 games, the best record in baseball, and they open the series at home in front of a crowd that has been waiting a year for this exact rematch.

The Dodgers, for their part, are trying to do something that hasn't been done in a quarter-century: win three straight World Series. The roster is built for it — the most talented group in recent memory, as Saturday's reporting put it — but the path runs through the team with the best record in the sport.

Sunday night in Milwaukee. Skubal vs. Misiorowski. Two Cy Young winners — one crowned, one likely — in Game 1 of a rematch a year in the making. The roster is nearly set, the pitching is lined up, and the veteran with the bad back is probably in. October baseball doesn't get much better than this.

More from the newsroom: the morning's full NLCS Game 1 preview · Ohtani's postseason slump · Skubal's beer-drenched celebration interview