Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, right, was confidence his team woul deliver a better performance Wednesday against the Nationals. The Dodgers earned a 6-5 win. (John McDonnell / Associated Press)
As he walked around the clubhouse on Wednesday afternoon, Dave Roberts could feel a better performance coming from his scuffling Dodgers team.
Given the way the rest of this road trip had gone, things couldn’t get much worse.
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During the previous five days, the once-unbeaten Dodgers team had lost four times. The night before, they did so embarrassingly on a frigid night in the country’s capital, striking out 15 times in a six-run loss to the rebuilding Washington Nationals.
In that defeat, Roberts was particularly perturbed by the club’s quality of at-bats — or lack thereof.
The Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández celebrates with Mookie Betts after hitting a two-run home run in the first inning against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on Wednesday. (Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
“The at-bats collectively haven’t been ‘team’ at-bats, and the results are showing,” Roberts said Tuesday night.
During his pregame media interview Wednesday, the manager reiterated that point.
“I just don’t think 15 strikeouts with our ballclub should happen,” he said.
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By then, however, Roberts had noticed a renewed intensity from the group in their afternoon preparation — leaving him hopeful that Tuesday’s blowout, and an overall frustrating first trip in which they’d already clinched back-to-back series losses, would serve as the catalyst for a much-needed getaway day win.
Read more: Without Blake Snell, Dodgers’ highly touted pitching depth falters in loss to Nationals
“You don’t want to get swept by these guys. That wouldn’t be a good thing,” Roberts said, with the Dodgers having already lost twice this week at Nationals Park. “I think our guys have a good look today. There’s a sense of pride … I think you’ll see a different focus today. I expect us to perform today.”
In a 6-5 win over the Nationals, the Dodgers performed just enough; building, then blowing, an early four-run lead before finally prevailing behind a go-ahead seventh-inning rally and 6 ⅔ scoreless innings from the bullpen.
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“We lost three in a row coming into today, and to cough up the lead when you score four runs in the first, it’s really disheartening,” Roberts said. “But when you win that last one to salvage it, it’s not so bad.”
With the sun finally out, and this week’s freezing East Coast temperatures finally warming up, the Dodgers got off to a blistering start Wednesday.
Shohei Ohtani hit a leadoff single. Mookie Betts put two aboard with a walk. Tommy Edman drove them both in with a triple into the right-field corner. Then Teoscar Hernández left the yard for a two-run shot.
Four batters in, it was 4-0 — marking the Dodgers’ highest-scoring inning outside of extras this season.
Los Angeles Dodgers Michael Conforto (23) congratulates Dodgers Shohei Ohtani on scoring the go-ahead run during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell) (John McDonnell / Associated Press)
“We’ve scored some runs in the games before today, but we didn’t actually have an inning like that one,” said Hernández, whose home run tied him with Tommy Edman for the team and National League lead with five. “At-bats were better. We made some better contacts. We went deep into counts. And we got some good swings, the big ones.”
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The Nationals (5-7), however, immediately answered back.
Washington starter Jake Irvin found a groove, retiring 18 of the 21 batters he faced the rest of the way in what turned into a decent six-inning start.
Dodgers starter Landon Knack, on the other hand, faltered in his return to the big-league roster, giving up three runs in the bottom of the first (it would have been more if not for an inning-ending play Betts made deep in the hole at shortstop) then two more while getting pulled in the third.
“First inning, especially, just completely out of sync with stuff,” said Knack, who will stay with the team to start again in next week’s series against the Colorado Rockies. “Just a frustrating day.”
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But once Irvin finally left the game at the start of the seventh, the Dodgers mounted their game-winning rally –– doing it with the kind of team offense that had been missing in recent days.
Andy Pages started the rally by whacking his second home run in two nights, busting out of his early-season slump with a game-tying drive to left in an 0-and-2 count.
Then, Ohtani reached on a booted grounder to second. Edman drew a two-out walk on four pitches. And with runners on the corners, Hernández muscled an 0-and-2 slider just over the head of second baseman Luis García Jr. in shallow right field for a bloop RBI single, plating the go-ahead run with his 16th RBI of the season (also tied for most in the NL).
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“Teo just found a way to will himself to drive in a run,” Roberts joked.
“Those are the at-bats you want during the game,” Hernández added. “It’s not always gonna be the big swings that are going to score runs.”
The bullpen also did its part, lowering its sterling early-season ERA to 2.25 by shutting the door the rest of the way.
“I don’t want to say we were desperate for a win,” said veteran right-hander Kirby Yates, one of six relievers who threw up a zero Wednesday. “But we didn’t want to leave here without one.”
In the ninth, Blake Treinen’s save was aided by the defense, too, when Kiké Hernández made a sprawling stop at first base to prevent the tying run from scoring.
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Without, Roberts noted from his office afterward, “I think we’d probably still be playing.”
Instead, the Dodgers avoided what would have been their first three-game series sweep since last July, validated Roberts’ pregame confidence, and at least salvaged something at the end of an otherwise disappointing road trip.
“When you’re expected to win 162 games in a season and you lose four in a week, it could feel like the world’s ending,” Kiké Hernández said. “But at the end of the day, we have 148 more. At some point, we were going to play s— baseball. And it just seemed like this was the week to do that.”
Freddie Freeman expected back Friday
When the Dodgers return to Los Angeles for the start of a six-game homestand Friday, they’ll get an important boost to the lineup.
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As was initially expected, injured first baseman Freddie Freeman is on track to be back on the field Friday night, after missing the team’s last nine games after re-aggravating his surgically repaired right ankle slipping in the shower earlier this month.
Freeman stayed back in California during the team’s trip this week, taking live batting practice at-bats against minor-league pitchers the last several days. More encouraging, according to Roberts, has been the way Freeman looked in baserunning drills the major-league coaching staff watched via video.
“Just looking at his gait running yesterday, I would say that it’s better than it was when he started the season,” Roberts said.
“If nothing changes, he’ll be in the lineup on Friday.”
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Freeman has played just three games so far this season. He sat out during the team’s season-opening series in Tokyo after feeling discomfort in the same area of his ribs he suffered torn cartilage during last year’s playoffs. And even before his shower mishap, his right ankle had not yet returned to 100% from the severe sprain he played through last October; an injury that led to a December debridement surgery to remove loose bodies.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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