Martinez’s counsel didn’t stick. The Nationals didn’t get another base runner, closing an 11-2 loss 0 for their final 22 as Los Angeles secured a series win.
“We got in swing mode,” Martinez said. “We didn’t work good counts. The last couple of days we struggled, period, with our offense. … We’re taking the good pitches, and it seems like we’re chasing bad ones.”
The Dodgers battered five Washington pitchers for 20 hits, including 12 off starter Jake Irvin, who was charged with six runs in 4⅔ innings.
The offensive struggles, however, underscored the concern for Lane Thomas, whose name Martinez planned to write in Sharpie on just about all of his lineup cards coming into the season. The outfielder was placed on the 10-day injured list with a grade 2 MCL sprain in his left knee, which the Nationals called a “best-case scenario” after Thomas left Tuesday night’s game following an awkward slide.
Thomas’s move to the IL also clarified the team’s plans for a handful of young players in the minors. With Joey Gallo moving to right field for the foreseeable future, Washington (10-13) recalled Trey Lipscomb from Class AAA Rochester and left several of its touted prospects to gain more at-bats in a less pressurized situation.
For Lipscomb, the Nationals’ development plan appears clearer than ever: They want him to play everywhere. And while Martinez has several times called him a super-utility player, a spot at first base was a surprise.
After a breakout spring training, Lipscomb was expected to contend for the second base job. When Senzel broke his thumb on Opening Day, Washington put Lipscomb at third base, his position, with his performance there earning him a minor league Gold Glove last season. After just 29 games at first base in the minor leagues, he ended the night with mixed results: He handled a screaming grounder from Shohei Ohtani to end the second inning with a 3-6-3 double play but also fumbled a two-hopper from García that opened the door to a two-run fifth, making the Nationals’ deficit 6-2.
“The whole new position thing, it’s kind of what I’ve been doing my whole career,” Lipscomb said before attributing the mishandled play to indecision.
Lipscomb wasn’t the lone young player worthy of consideration for a recall. First baseman Juan Yepez, 26, who has a .913 OPS at Rochester, was another option. And then there is outfielder James Wood, 21, one of baseball’s top prospects, who has followed up a stellar spring training with a strong start — hitting .300 with an OPS near .900. Washington so far has opted to show patience with Wood, though.
“He’s doing well, don’t get me wrong,” Martinez said. “But we want him to get at-bats in AAA and continue to do what he’s doing. We’re going to see James Wood, no doubt about it. But we just want him to continue to really feel good about himself and get him going.”
Knack needed just 45 pitches to get through his final four innings. Irvin needed 103 before Martinez pulled him with two outs in the fifth.
Martinez said Irvin’s strike-throwing was his strength in his last start against Los Angeles, a six-inning scoreless effort last week. This time around, the Dodgers (15-11) were ready. Mookie Betts’s two-run single in the second inning put the Nationals on its back foot. Gavin Lux’s two-run, two-out single in the fifth put them out of it.
“I think it escaped me a couple of times today where I was trying to do too much,” Irvin said. “Going out there and facing a lineup like that makes your job a heck of a lot harder when you’re not getting ahead and not putting yourself in good positions to pitch in good counts.”
Ohtani, a night after he took Matt Barnes’s splitter 450 feet to the second deck in right field, was a few feet away from another in the ninth inning, again against Barnes. He still drove in a run with a double, his third of the night, off the wall in left-center. Freddie Freeman followed with a two-run single, the 20th hit for Los Angeles on a long night.
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