LOS ANGELES – As bad as they looked over the last week against two of baseball’s least imposing opponents, the Nationals have had a weird knack for playing their best against the best. It sounds counterintuitive, but these guys have looked significantly better this year against the Dodgers than they have against the Marlins or Rockies.

Having already secured one series win vs. the defending World Series champs at home in April, the Nats now improbably have a chance to win another one against them Sunday afternoon after blasting five homers tonight in a 7-3 victory before a stunned, sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium.

James Wood, Luis García Jr., CJ Abrams and Nathaniel Lowe all homered on a cool L.A. summer night, with Lowe going deep twice for the 100th and 101st home runs of his career in one of the Nationals’ best offensive performances in some time, especially considering the level of competition.

"It's just fun," Wood said. "It's always good when the dugout is jumping like that. The more, the merrier."

A raucous crowd of 54,154 – largest in the majors so far this season – couldn’t process what it was watching. Chances are, fans who stayed up late back in D.C. were likewise having a hard time comprehending this explosion from a lineup that had been averaging a mere 2.8 runs per game this month.

"This is a really good environment here," Lowe said. "When it's a packed house, there's a ton of people, the speakers are shaking the grass in the outfield, it's easy to get up for it. We've just got to do a better job of playing our game, regardless of who we're playing against."

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. The Nationals may have just gone 1-6 against Miami and Colorado, but they’re now 3-2 against Los Angeles this year, having scored an average of 6.2 runs per game in these theoretical mismatches on paper.

"They want to win, and I think sometimes we're more just letting things happen (against top competition)," manager Davey Martinez said. "When we play some of these other teams, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to win a lot of games. Sometimes you've got to take a step back and just play the game. Everybody's got to do their part. Nobody has to be a superhero out there. Just go out and play the game, and good things happen."

The bats didn’t immediately come to life tonight. But after three quiet innings against Dustin May, an appropriate figure jumpstarted his team. Wood left the crowd in awe when he launched May’s 95 mph fastball just to the right of the batter’s eye in center field, some 451 feet away for his 21st home run of the season, already one more than Abrams hit last year to lead the team in more than twice as many games.

No sooner had everybody picked their jaws off the floor than García followed Wood with his own blast in the same direction. This one landed a mere 414 feet from the plate, but it counted all the same and gave the Nationals a 2-0 lead.

"Just getting ahead early is always better," Wood said. "If we can score first, that's always big. I could care less if it's me, CJ or any of the other guys."

García would strike out with the bases loaded in the fifth, a wasted opportunity the Nats hoped wouldn’t come back to haunt them but did loom large for a bit. Until Lowe brought them right back to life with a leadoff homer in the sixth, an opposite-field laser for a career milestone.

"I never would've thought that it would have been an option," said Lowe, who reached the century mark in his seventh big league season. "Now that it's over with, and the next one's done too, we've got to keep pushing."

Then came the definitive blow from Abrams. It didn’t travel as far as Wood’s homer. It didn’t give the Nationals the lead. But it came with a runner on base, it came off a left-hander and it silenced the crowd as soon as it left his bat with a thunderous crack, putting the visitors up 5-2 and giving their pitching staff some welcome cushion.

Speaking of cushion … Lowe provided even more when he led off the eighth with his second homer of the night, the 101st of his career. And when Keibert Ruiz, who already had three hits in the game, added a sacrifice fly later in the inning, the cushion was now up to five runs.

"Props to the whole lineup," Wood said. "I feel like everybody was having good at-bats today."

Jake Irvin battled not only the fearsome top of the Dodgers lineup, and not only the sellout crowd on Ice Cube Bobblehead Night at Dodger Stadium, but also his personal first inning demons tonight when he retired the side on 13 pitches. That set the tone for the right-hander, who entered with a 10.80 ERA in the opening frame but now was free to go after L.A.’s hitters without fear of an early implosion.

Irvin would reach the fifth inning with a zero on the board, stranding three runners on base to that point, only one of them in scoring position. Then he saved his best work for the Dodgers’ best hitters in a huge spot.

After surrendering a leadoff homer to Andy Pages in the fifth, Irvin looked like he might be ready to wilt. And after falling behind in the count 3-0 to Shohei Ohtani with a runner already on base, it felt like disaster was looming. How did the right-hander respond? By battling all the way back to strike out Ohtani looking at a fastball on the inside corner, then (after a ground ball single by Mookie Betts) by striking out Freddie Freeman swinging at a changeup with the crowd roaring for the future Hall of Fame No. 3 hitter.

"Shoot, man, I'm trying to punch him out," the righty said. "But at the very least, to try to get weak contact. I'm trying to keep my emotions in check, but what you're seeing there is just pure, raw emotion."

Irvin roared himself after that strikeout before hopping off the field and back to the dugout. It felt like he had just emptied the tank to escape the fifth-inning jam. But with his pitch count only 84 at the time, he was sent back to the mound for the sixth. At which point Will Smith jumped on an 89 mph fastball and sent it flying over the center field wall, just beyond Jacob Young’s leaping attempt.

Irvin would depart one batter later, his pitching line (two runs on six hits, zero walks, seven strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings) excellent under the circumstances, his team clinging to a 3-2 lead.

Thanks to a sustained display of power from his teammates, that lead kept growing. And Irvin didn’t have to sweat out his team-leading sixth win of the year.

"Just putting runs up on the board at any point, it's awesome. And a big sigh of relief from me on the mound. Those guys were awesome tonight."