James Wood and Kyle Finnegan power Nationals past the mighty Dodgers

The upstart Nationals took game one against the billion dollar Dodgers

In game on of the Nationals vs Dodgers series, David won. The Nats took home a 6-4 win against the billion dollar Dodgers. It was a gritty performance, with a lot of different heroes.

As MacKenzie Gore took the mound, he understood the challenge ahead of him. In the end our young left handed ace delivered, going 6 innings of two run ball striking out seven. The only guy in the Dodgers lineup to give him trouble was the king of kings himself, Shohei Ohtani.

Like they did with Corbin Burnes, the Nationals made Dustin May work very hard early in the game. They drew two walks in an ultimately scoreless first before they broke through in the second.

The Nats took advantage of some uncharacteristically poor Dodgers defense to take an early two run lead. LA made two error in the inning, but I think the scorers should change the error call to a hit on the Dylan Crews play. Crews hit a rocket to Mookie Betts that was not an easy play by any means.

However, in the top of the third, the Dodgers flexed their muscles. After MacKenzie Gore got two quick outs, he gave up a bloop hit to the 9 hitter. Then he threw a meatball to Shohei Ohtani. That went about as well as you would expect and the game was tied.

However, there was no quit in this Nats team. They put together a solid inning capped off by a Nathaniel Lowe RBI base hit.

After that, both pitchers settled in and really impressed. Dustin May was getting a ton of quick outs, while MacKenzie Gore was doing his thing out there. It was a tenuous 3-2 lead for the Nats.

The Nats needed to get some insurance and they did just that in the seventh. Amed Rosario got a big time pinch hit knock to start the inning. Two batters later, leadoff man James Wood hit one of his signature opposite field homers to make it a 5-2 ballgame.

Alex Call continued the rally with a double in what was a fantastic at bat. Luis Garcia Jr. singled, but Call got thrown out at home. However, Keibert Ruiz saved the day with a two out double to make it 6-2.

If you thought the Dodgers would go down without a fight in the eighth, you would be sorely mistaken. After a couple solid outings in a row, the Dodgers got to Lucas Sims, taking advantage of a leadoff walk.

With Sims only able to get one out, Davey Martinez turned to Kyle Finnegan to get the five out save despite this being his third straight day of work. Finnegan put together a truly heroic performance to get that 5 out save.

It was not easy and the Dodgers got close, but KF got the job done. After escaping the eighth, he gave up a leadoff double to Max Muncy in the 9th. After getting two outs, he wisely pitched around Ohtani to get to Mookie Betts. Finnegan got a huge ground ball to get the win over the mighty Dodgers.

This was a super gutsy win by the Nats and the best they have looked all season. I had a ton of fun watching this game. Let’s hope there are plenty of games like this and some less stressful ones as well!