In their first road trip of the 2021 season, the Washington Nationals, actually the first trip outside the East Coast since 2019, the Nationals. The afternoon started when the Los Angels Dodgers got their World Series Ring and raised their 2020 World Championship flag.
Today's game was the Nationals' first time playing against the Dodgers since the 2019 NLDS, where Howie Kendrick hit a grand slam in the top of the 10th inning to move the Washington Nationals to the NLCS.
In the bottom of the sixth, Justin Turner broke the scoreless game by hitting a 412 ft solo home run to left field against Nationals reliever Luis Avilán to give the Dodgers a one-run lead, which turned out to be all the scoring int the game, and all that the Dodgers need.
The Nationals weren't able to solve Walker Buehler in the afternoon. The Dodgers also got a great performance out of their starting pitcher Walker Buehler threw a total of 90 pitches over six innings with four strikeouts and didn't give up any runs and only six hits to the Nationals. 97.4 mph was Buehler's top pitch velocity. Buehler got his first win of the season.
Jonathan Lucroy went 2-2 with two singles, and now the Nationals face a tough decision on what to do with the catcher, as he has performed extremely well. Lucroy has four hits in three games after he joined the club the morning of Opening Day.
Today was the first time we saw Joe Ross since 2019 since he opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19, and he pitched extremely well. Ross went five innings and only gave up two hits and two walks, struck out four. Ross had only 67 pitches, and 40 of them were strikes. According to Baseball Savant, Ross's fastball reached 93.6 mph, and he threw his sinker for 40% of his pitches.
The Nationals are now 1-3 and the LA Dodgers go to 6-2, and the Nationals will try again tomorrow night to snap a three game loosing streak when they face the Dodgers starting at 10:30 pm EDT on MASN.
Before the game started, the Washington Nationals made some roster moves that included taking Catchers Alex Avila and Yan Gomes, left-handed reliever Brad Hand and infielder Jordy Mercer off the IL. LHP Patrick Corbin, who also made the trip to the West Coast, remains on the IL as the team tries to figure out if he is game-ready. On Friday, he threw on flat ground.
To account for all these moves, the Washington Nationals optioned prospect Tres Barrera and right-hander Ryan Harper, infielder Adrián Sanchez, outfielder Gerardo Parra, and lefty T.J. McFarland to the taxi squad. The Nationals optioned Carter Kieboom and outfielder Cody Wilson to the alternate training site.
Five players received clearance from MLB, Washington, and Los Angeles' protocols on Thursday, and they traveled on a flight to California on Friday morning to join the team.
The team got some additional good news this afternoon, as the D.C. Government announced that they would permit an increased amount of fans to attend when the Nationals return to face the Diamondbacks.
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