The journey is just as important as the destination in the eyes of Miguel Rojas, which is why the veteran shortstop isn’t fretting over the fact that the Dodgers are in a dogfight for the National League West for the first time since 2021.
The Dodgers cruised to division titles the past two seasons, winning the NL West by 22 games in 2022 and 16 games in 2023, and what good did that do them?
Thrust into high-intensity games for the first time in weeks, the 100-win Dodgers were swept by 84-win Arizona in the NL Division Series last October, and their 111-win team lost to 89-win San Diego in a four-game NLDS in 2022.
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Rojas believes the stress and intensity of a six-week tussle with the Padres and Diamondbacks for playoff spots will make the Dodgers far more battle-tested for October than they were the past two seasons.
“Those teams that have to win games down the stretch to get into the playoffs, like the Diamondbacks last year, they roll into the postseason knowing how to win and how to play in those do-or-die games,” Rojas said.
“I think they have the advantage because the pressure is off, the anxiety is gone, because you’ve been playing games like that and winning them. You have the confidence you can win them.”
Sunday’s nail-biter of a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Busch Stadium had that pennant-race feel, the Dodgers breaking a scoreless tie with two fifth-inning runs off Cardinals ace Sonny Gray and Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw throwing six shutout innings in which he gave up four hits, struck out two and walked one.
Kershaw, in his fifth start back from shoulder surgery, did not allow a runner to reach second base until the sixth, when he gave up singles to Pedro Pagés and Victor Scott II to open the inning.
But he escaped the two-on, no-out jam by getting Masyn Winn to fly out to center field and Willson Contreras to ground to third, where Rojas turned a double play.
This wasn’t the 2014 version of Kershaw, when he won the NL most valuable player award and his third Cy Young Award — his…