Dodgers 13, Nationals 7: Muncy’s grand slam wakes up the offense, Ohtani looks sharp on the mound

Chad Moriyama 06/22/2025 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

Every time Shohei Ohtani takes the mound, the story will be his continued rehab in the majors, and indeed he certainly looked like he made progress today. However, the rest of the team looked mostly dead through the halfway point.

Mid-game vibes.

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— Chad Moriyama (@chadmoriyama.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Fortunately, they don’t end games there, as despite sloppy defense and anemic hitting, Max Muncy came up with a huge grand slam to give them the lead out of nowhere, and the Dodgers absolutely blew it open after that to win a 13-7 laugher over the Nationals.

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Again, Ohtani’s the main story here and he should’ve had a 1-2-3 inning in the 1st, but Mookie Betts dropped an infield pop-up for an error. No matter, as it mostly served to help Ohtani strike out a pair instead of one.

A bit of a surprise, but Ohtani was done after that, and Ben Casparius took over in the 2nd. He worked around a lead-off single that Hyeseong Kim misread in center in the 2nd, but had some mess in the 3rd with two outs. A walk, single, and Nathaniel Lowe homering off Kim’s glove, the wall, and a fan in center made it 3-0 Nationals.

Casparius closed with three scoreless innings, allowing just a single the rest of the way: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 77 Pitches.

A solid outing, but worth noting that ever since they said they were stretching him out, he has four walks and six strikeouts compared to six and 44 prior.

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On the other end, there wasn’t much to update. Michael Soroka set a career-high with 10 strikeouts in his outing, and got just a walk through 4.2 innings before a Kim double broke up the no-no.

The 6th was a huge turnaround in the game, as Dalton Rushing led off with a double, Shohei got a generous walk, and with one-out Freddie Freeman got hit on the foot to load the bases.

Davey Martinez then turned to Jose Ferrer to matchup with Muncy. He started with a strike, but then threw two balls and complained about the mound. After they fixed it, he threw two more pitches, one of them rocketed the opposite way for a grand slam to give the Dodgers a 4-3 lead just like that. It was Muncy’s 10th of the season.

Next up for the Nationals was old friend/secret spy Ryan Loutos, who had an absolute nightmare outing. Kim led off by reaching on an error, Michael Conforto followed with a single, and Rushing walked to load the bases up.

For huge insurance runs, Ohtani hit a triple to drive in three runs and Mookie followed with a single to add another. After Freeman singled to make it six in a row reaching against Loutos, he was removed. Didn’t help, as Muncy subsequently went yard for his 11th, this time a three-run shot to make it 11-3.

Then in the 8th, after Rushing reached for the fourth time with a single, it was Ohtani’s 26th dong of the year to make it a 13-3 laugher.

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In relief of the reliever was Anthony Banda in the 7th, who worked around a single and a walk. Lou Trivino got the 8th with a big lead and didn’t look great, loading the bases with a walk and a pair of singles, but not allowing any damage.

Enrique Hernandez then tried to close the game out, but could only get one out while giving up four runs on three walks and two hits, leaving the bases loaded for Alex Vesia, who entered and gave up a sac fly and a single to make it 13-7 before ending it.

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NL WestRecordGB
Dodgers48-31–
Giants44-343.5
Padres42-355.0

The Dodgers will now hit the road, going to maybe the roughest place to start a trip out in Colorado for a three-game series against the Rockies. It’ll start at 2:40 PM HT/5:40 PM PT/8:40 PM ET with … another pen game (?) against German Marquez.

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