Muncy, Ohtani power the Dodgers to 13-7 win over Nationals

Muncy and Ohtani combine for three home runs, 12 RBIs as the Dodgers take the series against Washington.

The Dodgers end their 10 game homestand with seven wins after taking two of three from the Washington Nationals, winning the series finale by a 13-7 final score.

The hype once again surrounded Shohei Ohtani, as he prepared to take the mound for just the second time as a Dodger. Ohtani needed one pitch to get a groundout of C.J. Abrams before Mookie Betts failed to seal a pop out of James Wood. The Nationals couldn’t put the ball in play afterwards, as Ohtani recorded his first two strikeouts as a Dodger while completing a scoreless inning of work on just 18 pitches.

Ben Casparius relieved Ohtani’s single-inning outing, and followed up Ohtani with a shutout second inning of his own. During that inning, Hyeseong Kim experienced some growing pains in center field, as he took a wide route to a shallow fly ball off the bat of Josh Bell, prompting Michael Conforto to call it off an make an unsuccessful diving attempt.

Kim tracked down a deep fly ball hit from Nathaniel Lowe in the top of the third inning with two men on base, but the ball tipped off his glove, ricocheting off a fan’s hand over the left-center field wall. Initially ruled a two-run double, a successfully used challenge overturned the call as Washington grabbed a 3-0 lead.

The Dodgers could only muster one baserunner— a walk from Dalton Rushing— against Michael Soroka through his first four innings of work, and the right-hander secured his ninth strikeout of the game against Tommy Edman in the bottom of the fifth inning. Kim followed up with the Dodgers first hit of the game before Soroka recorded a new career-high 10th strikeout of the game.

Rushing became the only Dodger to reach base twice against Soroka as he placed a double down the left field line against a shifted Nationals outfield. Ohtani and Freddie Freeman both walked against Soroka before Jose A. Ferrer came in relief to face Max Muncy with the bases loaded. Muncy attacked a 2-2 sinker at the heart of the plate, sending it the other way for his 200th career home run as a Dodger, a grand slam that gave the Dodgers a one-run lead.

After Ohtani struck out two hitters and struck out twice at the plate, Ohtani lined a three-run triple against old friend Ryan Loutos, padding the lead to four with nobody out in the seventh inning. Mookie Betts lined the first pitch he saw from Loutos into left field, scoring Ohtani and increasing the lead to five before Freeman dunked in a single of his own.

Cole Henry came in to replace Loutos and served Max Muncy a fastball down the middle, where he punished his second home run of the game, giving the Dodgers 11 runs scored since the bottom of the sixth inning.

Ohtani sent another reminder to the baseball world about his two-way prowess after crushing his 26th home run of the season to give the Dodgers a double digit lead in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Game particulars

• Home runs— Max Muncy (10, 11), Shohei Ohtani (26); Nathaniel Lowe (13)
• WP— Ben Caspairus (6-1): 5 IP, 5 hits, 3 earned runs, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts
• LP— Jose A. Ferrer (2-3): ²⁄₃ IP, 2 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts

Up next

The Dodgers are off on Monday as they travel to Denver to begin a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday (5:40 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA). It’ll be another bullpen game for the Dodgers, while Germán Márquez will start the series opener for Colorado.