by Megan Garcia
As powerful, deep and talented as the Dodgers are, they’ve had to find themselves often climbing out of holes thus far in 2025.
Monday was one of those games where they peeked out of the hole but couldn’t get out completely.
Two errors in the second inning, Nationals starter MacKenzie Gore limiting them over six innings and missed opportunities with runners in scoring position all played roles in the Dodgers’ 6–4 loss against the Nationals in the series opener. Though they chipped away at the lead with a two-run eighth, the Dodgers couldn’t pull off an eighth comeback win this season.
Two errors in the middle infield in the second inning — by Mookie Betts and Miguel Rojas — led to two unearned runs. The Dodgers have made seven errors in their last six games and have seven errors this season.
The Dodgers played from behind for most of the night, beginning with a 2–0 deficit. They were 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
“It just seems like each night, there’s something fundamentally that we’re just not playing clean baseball,” said manager Dave Roberts. “Giving teams extra outs or giving up outs on the bases, or whatever it might be. But the fight that we saw tonight is still there.”
The Dodgers have trailed in 10 of their 12 games, thus far. They’ve been able to pull off seven wins in those games — one of them being Shohei Ohtani’s walk-off homer on April 2.
Atlanta capitalized on three errors by the Dodgers that night, which forced them to find a way to erase a four-run deficit.
“We just have to keep playing, keep preparing,” Roberts said. “We’ll be fine.”
May Gives an Encore
Dustin May issued three walks and three hits against the first 14 batters he saw on Monday. He recalibrated in the third after Nathaniel Lowe’s one-out single and retired the next 11 batters he faced to finish his night.
“I wasn’t really feeling synced up in my mechanics. Everything was kind of rushed and couldn’t really deliver.” May said of his troubles early in the game.
Yet May now has two promising starts in 2025 in his return after missing nearly two years of action.
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May is the second Dodger starter to pitch at least six innings this season (Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched six innings on April 4).
Ohtani Connects in Washington D.C.
Shohei Ohtani went 3-for-4 with two runs batted in and a run scored against the Nationals. It was his fourth multi-hit day in 12 games this season.
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Ohtani needed a double to complete the cycle on Monday. He hit a single in the first, a two-run homer in the third and a triple in the fifth.
He struck out and walked in his final two plate appearances.
“My approach really doesn’t change,” Ohtani said of his final at-bats to hit for the cycle. “It’s really just trying to get on base. That fourth at-bat I should’ve at least taken a hack and see what happened, but overall, my approach doesn’t change.”
Dodgers begin D.C. series in a hole was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.