LOS ANGELES – Michael Soroka was cruising, - dominating, if we’re being honest - a Dodgers lineup that rarely finds itself in such a position. And thanks to Nathaniel Lowe’s latest clutch blast, the Nationals were in control at Chavez Ravine, looking to pull off what could only be considered an improbable weekend series victory over the defending World Series champs.

The sixth inning, though, has been Soroka’s personal nightmare most of the season. And today, it became not only Soroka’s nightmare, but Jose A. Ferrer’s as well. Only to be upstaged minutes later by the absolute disaster Ryan Loutos and Cole Henry made of the seventh inning.

Thus did the Nats somehow turn a three-run lead into an eight-run deficit in the span of about 25 minutes at Dodger Stadium, suffering one of their worst meltdowns of the year en route to a 13-7 loss that doesn’t begin to hint at how winnable this game actually was at one point.

Max Muncy’s grand slam off Ferrer flipped the affair from Washington's to Los Angeles' favor. Shohei Ohtani’s three-run triple off Loutos added to the misery. And Muncy’s three-run homer off Henry – giving the veteran infielder seven RBIs in two innings – felt downright embarrassing to the Nationals, who were in prime position to win not only this series but the season matchup with the Dodgers, only to go down in flames in the finale.

"I don't think you want to look at the score. A loss is a loss, whether you lose by one or you lose by six," said center fielder Jacob Young, whose team trailed by 10 before scoring four runs in the top of the ninth off position player Kiké Hernández. "I thought we actually played a pretty good game, and they had two big swings that blew it open and caused it to be uglier than it was. It was a chance to win a series, and that's what we wanted to do when we came here. We just didn't get it done."

LOS ANGELES – Inside a joyous Nationals clubhouse late Saturday night, Nathaniel Lowe was asked about the significance of the 100th home run of his career.

“It’s super cool,” the veteran first baseman said. “I never would have thought that would have been an option.”

For a 13th-round draft pick who debuted with the Rays in 2019, was dealt to the Rangers in 2021 and then to Nats last winter, such career milestones never crossed Lowe’s mind. He’s made the most of his time in the majors, though, from the Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards in 2022 and 2023, respectively, to the World Series trophy he hoisted in 2023 with Texas.

The 29-year-old is now trying to bring those experiences to a very inexperienced Nationals clubhouse. His words and actions carry weight with teammates.

“He’s a guy in our locker room that we all kind of lean on, we all listen to,” left fielder James Wood said.

NEW YORK – Jackson Holliday singled on the first pitch thrown this morning. The Orioles had their fill yesterday of no-hit tomfoolery. Get that drama out of the way quickly and go about trying to win a series.

They made it to the eighth inning before losing their lead, and the series.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. lined a two-run double into right-center field off Bryan Baker to move the Yankees past the Orioles 4-2 before an announced crowd of 45,571.

Ben Rice led off the inning with a single and Giancarlo Stanton lined a one-out single into left field at 110.7 mph. Chisholm brought home Rice and pinch-runner Paul Goldschmidt, who slid across the plate as catcher Gary Sánchez tried to make a lunging tag.

Chisholm went to third base, and he scored an insurance run when Sánchez failed to hold onto Gunnar Henderson’s throw on DJ LeMahieu’s grounder. Plate umpire Jansen Visconti called Chisholm out before seeing the ball roll away.

LOS ANGELES – Guess who has played some pretty good baseball here the last two nights? Yeah, that would be your Washington Nationals, who narrowly lost Friday night’s series opener and then bounced back by blasting five homers Saturday night to convincingly beat the Dodgers. And just like that, they have an opportunity today to both win this series and win the season series against the defending World Series champs. Not too shabby for a team that just lost 11 in a row, huh?

The challenge today is a unique one, because the Nats will be facing Shohei Ohtani as both a hitter and as a pitcher. They’ve done a nice job against him as a hitter so far (1-for-7, two walks, three strikeouts). It’ll be up to Michael Soroka and the bullpen to try to keep that trend going this afternoon.

How will the Nationals’ lineup fare against Ohtani the pitcher? He’s only faced the franchise once before (April 2023 in Anaheim) and he dominated (seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball, despite five walks and a hit batter). Given the fact this is only his second start back from elbow surgery – and he couldn’t go on a minor league rehab assignment because he’s still on the active roster as a hitter – the Japanese phenom is expected to throw only two innings, maybe three if he’s really cruising. So really this game may hinge more on the Nats’ ability to do some damage against the Dodgers’ bullpen than their opener.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 78 degrees, wind 4 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
DH Josh Bell
3B Brady House
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

NEW YORK – Orioles reliever Yennier Cano struck out the side yesterday in the seventh inning and was optioned after the game. Overall production and limited bullpen flexibility doomed the 2023 All-Star.

Reliever Yaramil Hiraldo was recalled from Triple-A Norfolk. He’s using Cano’s locker at Yankee Stadium.

Cano has a 4.73 ERA and 1.388 WHIP in 32 games. He was scored upon once in nine appearances this month, but the Rays tallied four runs against him in two-thirds of an inning. He had a streak of nine scoreless outings out of 10 prior to the implosion.

“It starts, ultimately, with the amount of innings we’ve had to cover here recently with the bullpen,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino. “We need a fresh arm. You have a limited amount of bullpen guys who have options, so there’s really just a couple to choose from. You start to look at the big picture, right? The whole season for players, too, and where maybe a guy can take a break and go down and maybe work on something and get back to what they were.

“I know yesterday looks great where Cano comes in, probably has one of his best outings of the year for us. I think you’ve got to be very careful with the recency bias and just understand that we have to look at the last three, four months, last year. And understand that Yenni Cano has been good at times. He’s been up and down. I think everyone can admit that. And I think this could be a really good opportunity for Yenni to go down right now and kind of make the small adjustment, whatever needs to be made in order to get back to being Yenni Cano.”

The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Recalled RHP Yaramil Hiraldo from Triple-A Norfolk.
• Optioned RHP Yennier Cano to Triple-A Norfolk after yesterday’s game.

NEW YORK – Tony Mansolino issued an unintentional warning yesterday to opposing hitters.

The Orioles’ interim manager was asked whether reliever Félix Bautista is resembling the pre-elbow surgery version of himself, the dominant All-Star closer from 2023. Is The Mountain at his peak?

“I still think there’s another gear. I really do,” Mansolino said without hesitation.

“He’s been really good. I still think we’re gonna look up here in July and it’s gonna go up another notch. And I say that with all due respect. He’s been incredible. I think there’s another gear for the guy. He’s getting closer.”

Temperatures are soaring but Bautista is bringing some of his own heat. He struck out Aaron Judge on a foul tip Friday night at 99.7 mph and touched 99.2 against Jazz Chisholm Jr. after starting him out at 98. There’s some fluctuation, of course, with Bautista’s sinker also clocked at 97.7 mph on his strikeout pitch to Chisholm.

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.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals’ recent offensive struggles haven’t fallen on the shoulders of CJ Abrams. If anything, the shortstop and leadoff man has performed better as the team has performed worse as a whole.

After a sluggish start to his month, Abrams has taken off in the last two weeks. He enters tonight’s game against the Dodgers batting .372 (16-for-43) with three doubles, two homers, four RBIs and four stolen bases over his last 11 games (10 of those losses for the Nats).

Along with a healthy amount of loud contact, Abrams has also shown more patience at the plate, drawing six walks during that 11-game stretch, nearly one-third of his season total.

“We’ve talked to him a lot about being more selective, getting pitches (to hit),” manager Davey Martinez said. “I don’t mind him swinging at the first pitch if it’s a ball he feels like he can drive. But he has been a little more patient, a little more selective. And you see his numbers creeping back up, which is awesome.”

Indeed, Abrams has begun to turn his season back around after a slow stretch. He opened the year in standout form, owner of a .313/.371/.569 slash line through May 20. He then went 8 for his next 60, which brought his season totals down to .260/.327/.456. He hasn’t climbed all the way back yet, but at .279/.354/.478 he now owns numbers more in line with the best version of himself. And his .832 OPS currently leads all qualified National League shortstops.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals didn’t play poorly Friday night, but they needed to play just a little bit better if they wanted to beat the Dodgers. So that made the 6-5 loss in the series opener both encouraging and discouraging. They pretty much stood toe to toe with the defending champs but ultimately weren’t as good as the competition and lost a close ballgame in the process.

They’ll hope for better results tonight in game two of the weekend series. They’re facing a very different opposing starter from Clayton Kershaw in Dustin May, who of course is right-handed but also throws much harder than Kershaw. Batters are hitting a measly .081 against his four-seam fastball, which averages 95.1 mph. He also throws a ton of sweepers, against which opponents are batting only .219. The Nationals lineup needs to be smart tonight in pitch selection and swing decisions, to say the least.

Jake Irvin, meanwhile, needs to avoid his first-inning troubles (10.80 ERA) and find a way to start his night with a zero on the scoreboard before getting into a groove. Maybe the most extreme example of that issue came in April when Irvin gave up four runs before recording an out to these same Dodgers but then didn’t give up anything else the rest of his outing. Get through that first frame unscathed, and the right-hander could be in good position for a big night.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 10:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 69 degrees, wind 5 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
3B Brady House
DH Josh Bell
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

NEW YORK -  Less than 24 hours after plotting how to navigate the many bullpen restrictions in a regulation game, Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino stood in the visiting dugout at Yankee Stadium and watched Zach Eflin throw 30 pitches in the first inning.

Only one run scored on Trent Grisham’s homer, but it’s become an exercise in this series that Mansolino would rather sit out.

Eflin threw 29 more in the second and surrendered two second-deck home runs. By the conclusion of the third, Eflin’s pitch count had risen to 90 and the Orioles were barreling toward a 9-0 loss to the Yankees before an announced sellout crowd of 46,142.

Clarke Schmidt no-hit them for seven innings, his removal coming after 103 pitches. He walked two batters in the first and nailed Ryan O’Hearn in the fourth. JT Brubaker entered in the eighth inning, his first major league appearance since 2022, and former Yankee Gary Sánchez led off with a full-count single at 103.2 mph for the Orioles' lone hit.

The Orioles have been no-hit seven times, the most recent by the Mariners’ Hisashi Iwakuma on Aug. 12, 2015 in Seattle. Today would have marked the first combined effort for both teams. Instead, the Orioles settled for being shut out for the seventh time this season.

NEW YORK – Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman underwent an MRI this morning to determine the source of his left abdominal tightness. Maverick Handley is on the medical taxi squad and would be recalled if Rutschman goes on the injured list for the first time in his career.

Rutschman missed two games this season after taking a hard foul ball off his mask, but he’s managed to avoid the IL. He was scratched from last night’s lineup.

“He just walked in the building,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino. “Got an MRI this morning, we’ll sort through. … If it’s not something that he’s gonna be day-to-day on and something that he’s got to go on the IL on, then we’ll make that move before the game.”

Mansolino isn’t able to specify whether the injury’s related to the oblique.

Rutschman’s ability to play a physically demanding position, take a beating doing it and stay away from the IL at this point in his career impresses everyone in the organization. But that streak might be nearing an end.

NEW YORK – The next update on All-Star voting is a few days away and Ryan O’Hearn should maintain his lead among designated hitters in the American League. Teammates are pulling for him, believing that he’s earned the honor and wanting him to be rewarded for grinding and persevering through the difficult times in his career. And they know that the Rafael Devers trade from the Red Sox to Giants has improved the odds.

O’Hearn is too modest to campaign for it. Other players will do it for him.

“He’s 1,000 percent deserving,” said shortstop Gunnar Henderson. “He’s just been unbelievable this first half of the season. He’s been one of the best hitters in baseball. It’s really cool to watch him do his thing and really cool to see where he is now through the journey that he’s had in baseball, and there’s no one more deserving than him.”

Last night’s lineup didn’t include O’Hearn, who went 2-for-13 in four games against the Rays in Tampa and would have faced Yankees left-hander Max Fried. He pinch-hit in the eighth inning and singled to leave his average at .304 with an .867 OPS.

The first vote reveal on Monday showed O’Hearn with 353,029 to lead the Yankees’ Ben Rice (232,331) and the White Sox’s Mike Tauchman (177,483). He was a finalist last year but lost to the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals arrived here in good spirits late Thursday night, bolstered by a desperately needed, walk-off win to snap an 11-game losing streak. They didn’t know if that effort would carry over into the opener of a nine-game trip in which they’ll never leave Southern California, but if nothing else it did feel like a massive weight was lifted off their shoulders.

To beat the defending World Series champions, though, it requires more than positive vibes. It requires clean baseball, timely hitting and stars rising to the occasion. And during tonight’s 6-5 loss to the Dodgers, the Nats were lacking just a bit in all three aspects.

With a high-profile pitching matchup against Clayton Kershaw, MacKenzie Gore gave up a season-high six runs, all of them scoring with two outs. With multiple chances to deliver a damaging blow to Kershaw, the Nationals lineup went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. And when they needed a perfect turn of a potential inning-ending double play, they were just a split-second slow, ultimately opening the floodgates for a three-run Dodgers rally that might well have been the difference in the game.

There’s no shame in losing a close ballgame to one of the best teams in baseball. But the Nats weren’t about to rattle off silver linings after their 12th loss in 13 games, especially when this one was quite winnable.

"It's a game of inches," manager Davey Martinez sighed as he wrapped up his postgame press conference.

NEW YORK – The Orioles escaped the oppressive heat in Tampa, knowing that temperatures would rise in the Bronx for afternoon and late-morning starts this weekend and possibly touch triple digits Tuesday in Baltimore. A stretch of consecutive games in a row will reach 16 before Thursday’s off-day, and interim manager Tony Mansolino talked about scraping guys off the grass.

He had to scratch Adley Rutschman, who was bothered by left side discomfort. And the Orioles had to face Yankees left-hander Max Fried, who brought nine wins and a 1.89 ERA into the series opener.

Adversity keeps stacking up for a team trying to claw its way out of a deep hole. It can be weather, health, exhaustion, opponent or something else, but the Orioles won’t always let it stall the momentum that might be building.  

The Orioles jumped Fried early and lost their legs, but Coby Mayo delivered a game-tying single in the sixth inning and Ramón Urías led off the eighth with an opposite-field home run off Luke Weaver in a 5-3 victory over the Yankees before an announced sellout crowd of 47,034.

Urías fell behind 0-2 and worked the count full, and his 337-foot fly ball landed inside the right field foul pole. Gunnar Henderson extended his hitting streak to 14 games with a pinch-hit RBI single, and the Orioles (33-42) moved within nine games of .500 for the first time since May 11.

LOS ANGELES – Dylan Crews won’t be making his Dodger Stadium debut this weekend, and it’s probably killing him to have to come to grips with that fact. But the Nationals’ rookie outfielder is here with his teammates at Chavez Ravine, making his first road trip since he landed on the injured list one month ago and finally cleared to begin basic baseball activities.

Crews, out since May 21 with a strained left oblique muscle, took his first swings since suffering the injury Thursday, and the plan is for him to now slowly ramp things up in hopes of getting back on the active roster as soon as possible.

“We’re not putting a timetable on it. We’re just going by how he feels and what the trainers say,” manager Davey Martinez said. “But yesterday he was able to take some really light dry swings, which is definitely encouraging.”

Crews isn’t hitting a baseball yet, nor is he participating in defensive drills with his teammates. But he was thrilled to learn he’d be joining the Nats on this three-city, Southern California trip after being left at home in D.C. for the team’s last two road swings.

That’s a product both of his readiness to begin the kind of baseball activity the team’s coaching and training staffs want to see in person, but also a desire to keep the 22-year-old actively involved even when he’s not actively playing yet.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals took a much-needed happy flight west Thursday night after finally snapping their 11-game losing streak with a walk-off, 11-inning win over the Rockies, courtesy James Wood. And they won’t board another plane for 10 more days, when they fly home at the end of a three-city, nine-game trip played entirely within Southern California. The trip ends in Anaheim, with a stop in San Diego prior to that. And it kicks off tonight at Dodger Stadium with the first of three against the defending World Series champs.

We’ll got a doozy of a pitching matchup for the series opener: MacKenzie Gore vs. Clayton Kershaw. Gore has already toppled the Dodgers this season, allowing two runs over six innings in a 6-4 win back in early April. The lefty has another opportunity tonight to state his All-Star case against an All-Star lineup. Knowing him, he’s plenty fired up for this one.

Kershaw makes only his seventh start of the season after opening the year on the injured list. He’s still quite good, with a 3.25 ERA and 1.301 WHIP at age 37. This is the first time the future Hall of Famer has faced the Nationals since 2021, so he’ll be going up against a very different lineup than he remembers.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 10:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 69 degrees, wind 5 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
2B Ames Rosario
LF James Wood
DH Andrés Chaparro
1B Nathaniel Lowe
3B Brady House
RF Alex Call
C Riley Adams
CF Jacob Young

NEW YORK – Tyler O’Neill is almost ready to begin playing games again.

O’Neill was returned from his injury rehab assignment with Triple-A Norfolk last Saturday due to renewed soreness in his left shoulder. He was shut down for about a week after receiving an injection in his AC joint.

“My guess is we could see him out on a rehab assignment possibly by Tuesday somewhere, maybe a tick earlier if all goes well,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino. “Things happen, things kind of come off schedule at times, but if all goes well we’ll start seeing him playing some ball soon.”

O’Neill went 6-for-16 in five games with Norfolk while recovering from the impingement that forced him on the injured list retroactive to May 16.

Jorge Mateo hasn’t played since June 6 because of inflammation in his left elbow, the result of a collision with Heston Kjerstad in right-center field on May 31. Mansolino said that Mateo is “probably getting closer to talking about going out at some point.”

NEW YORK – The Orioles are going with their right-handed lineup tonight to open their series against the Yankees, which puts Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Ryan O’Hearn and Cedric Mullins on the bench.

Jordan Westburg is leading off and playing second base. Ramón Urías is the third baseman and cleanup hitter. Luis Vázquez is the shortstop.

Coby Mayo gets back into the lineup at first base. Adley Rutschman is the designated hitter.

Henderson has a 13-game hitting streak, one short of his career high. He’s batting .396 with seven RBIs and nine runs scored during the streak.

Rutschman has registered a .317 career batting average against the Yankees, the third highest among active players after José Ramírez’s .332 and Jose Iglesias’ .329 in a minimum 150 plate appearances.

James Wood’s walk-off two-run home run in the 11th inning against the Rockies yesterday signified more than just the end to the Nationals’ 11-game losing streak. It signified a moment where the rest of the baseball world might have caught onto the budding phenomenon that we already knew of here in Washington, D.C.

“We kept saying the whole game, I said, 'Somehow, someway we'll win this game. We just gotta have the right moment,'” manager Davey Martinez said after the win. “And what a moment for the kid to come up there and lift us like that and really get us out of this funk.”

With a runner on third, two outs and his team down 3-2 while staring their 12th straight loss in the face (which would have tied a Nats club record), Wood sent the second pitch from Seth Halvorsen fast and high into the air. The contact was solid, but as Wood watched it, he wondered if it would travel far enough to get out of the reach of Gold Glove center fielder Brenton Doyle?

“Honestly, no,” Wood replied when asked if he knew he had hit a homer to win the game. “I knew I got it good, but I saw Doyle, you never really know with him out there. But yeah, I was just ready for the fastball, and I just was able to see a splitter up.”

The ball traveled plenty far enough for the first walk-off home run of his career.