"Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani and this mf says they were underdog" - Fans react to Miguel Rojas' bold claim about NLDS against Padres

LA Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas thinks the San Diego Padres were the better team on paper when the rivals faced each other in the NLDS. The series was an intense one with the Padres almost sending the World Series champions on the brink of elimination by taking a 2-1 series lead. However, they were shut down by the Dodgers in the next two games to get eliminated.

Rojas aired his thoughts on the "Chris Rose Rotation" podcast on Monday. He cited multiple injury concerns to key players like Freddie Freeman, who suffered an ankle injury before the postseason.

He also mentioned the team had players who didn't have much experience on the big stage and therefore, he said the team was "special."

"I think everybody in the clubhouse knew that we didn't have the best team last year," Rojas said. "If you put both teams—the Padres and the Dodgers—on paper, we didn’t have the advantage in that series."

Fans thought that Rojas was over his head and didn't know what he was talking about.

"Tryna force an underdog gimmick so bad," one fan commented.

"Sorry man this does not play. You cannot use this card no matter how badly you want to force it,." another wrote.

"The Dodgers opened as -140 favorites FYI," another said.

"Mookie, Freeman, Ohtani, Smith, Teoscar, Edman and this mf says they were underdog? Hahahaha," one fan wrote.

However, some fans supported Rojas' claim that the Padres were the better team.

"I fully went into that series thinking that we might have gotten eliminated. And he’s not wrong. It went to game 5 because of the reasons he listed. People gotta listen before just commenting," one fan wrote.

"He's not lying. I also believed the Padres had the best roster, and the winner of that series was going to win the World Series," another added.

What did Miguel Rojas say to turn heads?

Miguel Rojas made a bold statement a couple of days ago that the team consisting of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, Teoscar Hernandez, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler were not on par against the likes of Fernando Tatis Jr., Jurickson Profar, Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, Jake Cronenworth, Joe Musgrove and Michael King.

"Remember, we had a broken Freddie Freeman, literally playing on one ankle," Rojas said. "We had three starters—Walker had a seven-year reign in the regular season, and you didn’t know how he was going to perform.

"Then, we had two starters: one rookie, Yamamoto, who had never pitched in that kind of moment before, and Jack Flaherty, who came from another organization—who knows how many pitches he had left to get through the postseason?"

Rojas appreciated that it was the bullpen who saved the team from elimination in Game 4, while also acknowledging the contribution from Kike Hernandez and Tommy Edman.

"And then a bunch of dogs in that bullpen saved us, along with a bunch of guys who were ready to play," Rojas added. "Kike Hernández was the best example. He said to me, ‘This is the moment they brought me here for, so let me take it. Let me take over from now.’ Tommy Edman was the same way. How many months did he go without playing to start the season? Four months. He made his debut this year in July."

In the end, the reason why "this team was special," Rojas said:

"Not just because of the talent—if you think about it, we had three starters and didn’t have all the stuff we have now. What I’m saying is, we won because we were a team that showed character and was ready to play."

While it's hard to think of a team with Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts being considered underdogs but as some fans said, Miguel Rojas made a valid argument.