In the hours leading up to the Dodgers’ Sept. 10 game against the Colorado Rockies, Dodgers catcher Ben Rortvedt was taking a nap.
After the previous week, it was a well-deserved rest.
A 28-year-old journeyman backstop who’d been traded from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Dodgers at the deadline, Rortvedt was called up from the minors and thrust into emergency duty in the middle of a tight division race. In the span of three days from Sept. 3-5, both Will Smith and Dalton Rushing had been injured. And in Rortvedt’s first three starts with the Dodgers after that, he’d twice helped take a no-hitter into the ninth while offering unexpected contributions with his bat.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” Rortvedt said then. “But this gets you battle-tested.”
By Sept. 10, however, Rortvedt’s time in the majors appeared to be ticking. The previous night, Smith had returned to the lineup a week after taking a foul ball off his throwing hand. Rushing was also working his way back from the injured list after fouling a ball off his leg five days earlier. And in what appeared to be one of his final days on the Dodgers’ big-league roster, Rortvedt went for a pregame nap.
When he woke up, everything had suddenly changed.
And three weeks later, he will start behind the plate for the Dodgers in Game 1 of their National League wild card series against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night.
In the lead-up to that Sept. 10 game, Smith’s hand swelled up on him, forcing him to be scratched from the lineup and ultimately go for further testing that revealed a fractured bone where the team initially believed there was only a bruise.
Rushing, meanwhile, never found a groove with his bat or his game-calling upon returning to the active roster a few days later, enduring more rookie growing pains that had plagued him all year.
Rortvedt, on the other hand, just kept on contributing, providing a steady presence behind the plate for the pitching staff, improved defense on balls in the dirt, and subtly useful offense with a .224 batting average and three sacrifice bunts.
It was enough for manager Dave Roberts to effectively name Rortvedt the team’s primary catcher in Smith’s absence, saying he would get the “lion’s share” of playing time if Smith wasn’t back for the start of the playoffs.
And though Smith was included on the Dodgers’ wild-card roster Tuesday, after making enough progress with his hand to take live at-bats during a team workout the night before, he still wasn’t ready to resume full starting duties. For this series, he will likely be only a pinch-hit option off the bench.
Rortvedt, meanwhile, will get playoff starts not even he could have seen coming a month ago.
“I’ve just been really grateful to get another chance [in the majors],” Rortvedt said last week. “And a chance like this is an amazing opportunity.”
A former second-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins coming out of high school in Wisconsin in 2016, Rortvedt has struggled to carve out a consistent major-league role in his nomadic professional career. He made his MLB debut in 2021 with the Twins but hit just .169 over 39 games. He was traded to the New York Yankees the following spring as a minor piece in a Josh Donaldson/Gary Sánchez deal, but spent most of that year injured.
After another disappointing 32-game stint in 2023 with the Yankees, when he hit .118, Rortvedt finally found some success in 2024 following another trade to Tampa Bay. Through mid-May, he was hitting over .300 and earning consistent starts behind the plate. And though his numbers faded the rest of the way, he finally seemed to be cementing his place on a big-league roster, entering this season confident that some offseason swing tweaks would lead to an even stronger year.
“I thought I was in a really good space to have a good year,” Rortvedt said.
Instead, it all fell apart.
In 26 games over the season’s first two months, Rortvedt had just six hits in 63 at-bats. He was relegated to backup duties, then ultimately the minor leagues. In late May, when he was designated for assignment, he traded emotional goodbyes with his Rays teammates on his way out of the clubhouse.
“The beginning of the year was a big down for me,” he said. “I messed around with a little too many things [in my swing], and I never got comfortable coming out of spring training.”
At the trade deadline, Rortvedt was on the move again, getting roped into a three-team deal with — coincidentally — the Dodgers and Reds that saw Los Angeles effectively use him to replace Hunter Feduccia as their third organizational catcher.
“As one door closes, another opens,” Rortvedt said. “And especially with the organization here, with the reputation, the job they do in all aspects of the game, I was extremely grateful to be in this kind of place.”
That didn’t mean his transition over the last month was easy. After being thrust into starting duties, Rortvedt spent most of his hours catching bullpens, talking with the team’s pitchers about their tendencies, and devouring film of the staff each night on his iPad to learn each one’s pitch mix.
“That’s really, really hard,” Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann said. “But his personality and the way he goes about things shows that he cares. It’s evident in his work and his meetings and talking to the guys, and putting defense first when he’s supposed to.”
Despite the whiplash nature of his return to the majors, Rortvedt found all-around success.
He has gone 11-for-49 at the plate with two doubles, a home run and an on-base-percentage above .300, posting a higher OPS than Rushing on the year. He has overseen a dominant run from the rotation, with Dodgers pitchers posting a 2.89 ERA in the 18 games he has caught.
“For him being new to the team, he’s just had a really good energy,” Dodgers Game 1 starter Blake Snell said. “He’s been very clutch for us offensively, very clutch for us defensively. I just attribute it to how much he wants to catch and how much he wants to be back there. His excitement, it’s contagious. And it’s helping the pitchers pitch good.”
The Dodgers, of course, are still hoping to get Smith back to full-time starting duties at some point this October. They still have Rushing as a long-term piece of their future puzzle.
But for now, Rortvedt has been the right guy at the right time to help the team navigate its sudden catching problems. And Tuesday night, he’ll get his first playoff start.
“It’s been pretty crazy,” Rortvedt said of his brief but influential Dodgers tenure. “But it’s definitely been better than sitting around.”