The Los Angeles Dodgers welcomed the Washington Nationals to town for their home opener on Friday afternoon, although a majority of the focus before the game was on the ceremony in which the team received their 2020 championship rings and raised the banner.
Once the ceremony was over though, the focus shifted back to baseball and the Dodgers were able to come away with a slim 1-0 win to improve to 6-2 on the young season.
The starting pitching matchup featured a pair of righties in Walker Buehler and Joe Ross, and both had their stuff working early.
Buehler was the beneficiary of some solid defense from the Dodgers early on, with Gavin Lux and Zach McKinstry both making quality plays behind him to help keep the Nationals off the scoreboard. Will Smith also made a perfect throw from behind the plate to gun down Juan Soto trying to steal second to end the top of the fourth.
Through the first four innings, Justin Turner had the only two hits for the Dodgers, extending his Major League-leading on-base streak to 38 games.
Buehler’s first real jam of the day came in the fifth when a pair of singles put runners at the corners with two outs. He struck out his counterpart, Ross, though to get out of it without any damage.
The same thing happened in the sixth with Juan Soto and Ryan Zimmerman both singling with two outs to put a couple of runners on, although Buehler again escaped the jam by getting Starlin Castro to ground out to third.
There finally was a run scored in the bottom of the sixth, and to no surprise, it came courtesy of Turner, who launched his second home run of the season to left-center. The solo shot was his third hit of the day and gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.
That put Buehler in line for the win, although his day was done after completing six shutout innings, allowing six hits with four strikeouts and no walks.
Victor Gonzalez was the first reliever out of the bullpen for L.A. and was brilliant, striking out two in a perfect seventh inning.
Blake Treinen then worked the eighth and immediately found himself in a jam after a ground-rule double and bunt single put runners at the corners with no outs. Smith proceeded to gun down his second runner trying to steal second though, which paved the way for Treinen to escape the jam by getting a strikeout and groundout to strand the tying run at third.
The Dodgers were not able to tack on any runs, so it was a 1-0 lead for Corey Knebel, not Kenley Jansen, to close it out in the ninth. The decision by Dave Roberts proved to be a good one as Knebel struck out the side to close it out.
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