Roki Sasaki stumbles, Dodgers bail him out in comeback win
Fredo Cervantes
Host · Writer
WASHINGTON — The box score will remember it as another comeback. The clubhouse will remember it as something else entirely.
On a gray, rain-delayed afternoon that felt like it might slip away for good, the Dodgers instead reinforced the identity they’ve been quietly building over the season’s first stretch: relentless, opportunistic, and increasingly dangerous late. Their 8–6 win over the Washington Nationals on Sunday wasn’t clean, and it certainly wasn’t conventional.
For Roki Sasaki, it was a lifeline.
A start that nearly unraveled
For two innings, Sasaki looked every bit like the front-line weapon the Dodgers envisioned. Crisp, efficient, even flashing the developing third pitch he’s spent the spring refining. But by the third, the margin for error narrowed—and then disappeared.
A walk to James Wood. A spiked breaking ball. And then a mistake fastball that Luis García Jr. didn’t miss.
Two batters, two runs, and suddenly the rhythm was gone.
The fourth inning only compounded it. What should have been an inning-ending grounder from Keibert Ruiz instead ricocheted off the first-base bag and into right field. Two batters later, Wood again—this time depositing an 0–2 splitter into the seats for a three-run homer.
From 1–0 Dodgers to 6–1 Nationals in a blink.
Sasaki’s final line—five innings, six earned runs—won’t flatter him. Nor should it. The command wavered, and at this level, elevated mistakes don’t come back. Still, there were flashes: five strikeouts, moments of swing-and-miss dominance, hints that the foundation remains intact.
What he didn’t have Sunday was margin. What he did have was a team that refused to let the outing define the game.
Ohtani starts it, but the lineup finishes it
For five innings, the Dodgers’ offense was little more than a footnote against Foster Griffin. No hits the first time through the lineup.
Then came Shohei Ohtani.
A 438-foot drive to dead center in the third inning not only put the Dodgers on the board—it extended his on-base streak to 40 games.
The slow climb back
Down five runs after four innings, the Dodgers didn’t panic—they chipped away.
Dalton Rushing, after a frustrating pitch-clock strikeout earlier, answered with a two-run homer in the sixth. A small moment, maybe, but it trimmed the deficit and shifted the tone.
By the eighth inning, trailing 6–3, the Dodgers loaded the bases with no outs. That’s when Santiago Espinal—quietly one of the club’s best spring performers—delivered his first real signature moment in blue: a two-run single that snapped the tension and pulled the Dodgers within one.
Depth, decisions, and a defining inning
Dave Roberts went to his bench, and the Dodgers’ depth did the rest. Will Smith came in to pinch hit and worked a walk to reload the bases. Kyle Tucker—also came in to pinch hit, another option Roberts trusted in the moment—put the ball in play, productive even in an out.
Then Ohtani again. Not a homer this time, but a sacrifice fly that completed the climb all the way back from five down to ahead 7–6.
It wasn’t flashy. It was better than that—situational, disciplined, and emblematic of a lineup that doesn’t need heroics from one spot when it can generate pressure from all of them.
An inning later, Teoscar Hernández added breathing room with his first homer of the season, a solo shot that pushed the lead to 8–6.
From there, it was over.
Edwin Díaz handled the ninth with authority, needing just 13 pitches to secure the final three outs. Seven unanswered runs. A sweep completed. And another comeback added to a growing tally that now leads Major League Baseball at five.
The Dodgers scored 31 runs in this series. That alone will quiet early-season concerns about offensive inconsistency. But Sunday wasn’t about volume—it was about resilience. Games like this don’t show up in projections. They don’t carry into October standings. But inside a clubhouse, they matter.
They tell a struggling starter he won’t have to be perfect.They remind a lineup it’s never out of a game.They reinforce a belief that deficits are temporary. For Sasaki, it means a reset instead of a spiral.
For the Dodgers, it’s something more: a team already showing it can win in more ways than one.
Next stop: Toronto.
A return north of the border. A World Series rematch. And a familiar stage where, not long ago, the Dodgers proved exactly how dangerous they can be when a game, and a moment, refuses to slip away.
