Dodgers sweep punchless Nats behind strong start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto

Though the Nationals didn’t win, Gore threw a winning pitch. When Joey Meneses secured the ball at first, the typically stoic Gore pumped his fist. And then, as if he suddenly realized he was out of character, he adjusted his pants and belt and casually sauntered back to the dugout.

“Our pitchers are doing a great job on the mound and battling and pitching well,” Meneses said. “And not being able to help them on the offensive side, obviously it’s very, very frustrating.”

But Washington fell because of the young pitcher in the visiting dugout. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles’s $325 million offseason investment, tossed six scoreless innings and helped complete a series sweep. The Nationals (10-14), who took two of three from the Dodgers (16-11) last week in Los Angeles, head to Miami on Friday looking to get back on track.

“MacKenzie did great, give us six strong innings,” Manager Dave Martinez said. “He pitched really well. We got to get the offense going again. … It’s not easy to hold that team over there to just two runs. We just got to hit. We got to come back. We got to be aggressive and start hitting the baseball.”

What Gore showed in that fifth inning — and for most of six innings at Nationals Park — was an ability to avoid damage even when he didn’t always have his best stuff. He came out strong, delivering a 10-pitch first inning that included a three-pitch strikeout of Ohtani — all on four-seam fastballs. But his biggest mistake came an inning later, when he left a change-up high and over the middle of the plate that Teoscar Hernández launched into visiting bullpen for a 1-0 lead. Later that inning, Gore threw another high change-up that Andy Pages hit for a single to put runners on the corners with no one out.

While Gore escaped the jam without any further damage, the inning cost him 26 pitches. His third inning required 21 pitches, driving up his pitch count to 57. He got through the next three innings with 45 pitches, ending his afternoon after six innings, seven hits and four strikeouts. The home run by Hernandez was the lone run charged to the left-hander.

Gore threw 58 four-seam fastballs, but the Dodgers fouled off 17 of them. The first runner reached in four of Gore’s six innings, putting him in high-leverage situations from the jump. He said his pitch usage could have led to the foul balls on the fastball.

“That’s kind of been what’s happened the last couple outings,” Gore said. “But also, when you throw heaters, people foul them off. But I got to understand why they’re fouling it off. I didn’t end at-bats as quickly as I could today. But some of it is, they’re pretty good.”

He was at 90 pitches to start the sixth and allowed a leadoff single to Freddie Freeman. Gore shook his head and shrugged. He needed just four pitches to strike out Hernández with a curveball. Then, Jacob Young robbed Kiké Hernández of an extra-base hit in the right-center gap and doubled up Freeman, who was by third base when the center fielder made the play.

“Today was a growth moment for him,” Martinez said. “He gave us everything he had, and he grinded it out. We keep getting good starting pitching like that, we’ll be fine.”

Gore, who left trailing 1-0, just had the misfortune of facing Yamamoto, who also went six innings, all scoreless, allowing four hits while striking out seven. The right-hander looks like the real thing through six starts. Washington’s offense, however, remains a work in progress. The team has scored six or more runs in just five of 24 games and three or fewer in 13.

And in getting swept at home, the Nationals managed just four runs over three games, ending a 14-inning scoreless streak in the eighth inning Thursday thanks to an RBI single from Meneses. They hoped that maybe catcher Keibert Ruiz, who was reinstated from the 1o-day injured list after battling the flu, could help following a brief rehab assignment, but he went hitless in four at-bats.

“Our pitchers are doing a great job on the mound and battling and pitching well,” Meneses said. “And not being able to help them on the offensive side, obviously it’s very, very frustrating.”

Note: Third baseman Nick Senzel was scratched from Thursday’s game with a stomach illness and replaced by Ildemaro Vargas.