The Dodgers were hit with their first series loss of 2025 over the weekend, dropping two of three in Philly. After splitting the first two games, Tyler Glasnow struggled with the rainy conditions on Sunday and they couldn’t overcome 11 Phillies walks in an 8-7 loss. The loss, combined with the general craziness of the NL West to start the season, has the 9-2 Dodgers in second place in the West behind the 8-1 (?) Giants. Today, the Dodgers begin a three-game set in the nation’s capitol and it’s taking a whole lot of self-control for me to not get some thoughts out about their morning activities. Instead I’ll talk about the Nationals, who are 3-6 to start the season but have won their last two games. They took two of three from the Diamondbacks over the weekend and handed Corbin Burnes his first loss as a DBack yesterday. The Nationals took two of three in LA last April, but the Dodgers swept them in Washington a week later and outscored them 17-4 over those three games.
The Nationals send their ace to the hill in MacKenzie Gore. The 26-year-old lefty posted a 3.90 ERA/3.53 FIP in 32 starts last season and the team went 15-17 when he started, which seems good for a team that finished 20 games under .500. Gore started the season very strong, posting a 2.91 ERA/2.84 FIP over his first 11 starts. That included his only start against the Dodgers on April 25, when he took the loss despite only allowing one run (a Teoscar Hernandez solo homer) over six innings. His next couple months were quite rocky, as Gore posted a 6.18 ERA/ 4.30 FIP over his next 14 starts and allowed a .858 OPS against. Gore ended the season strong only allowing seven runs over his final seven starts. Gore only allowed 15 homers in his 32 starts but struggled a bit more against lefties than righties. He allowed six homers in 185 plate appearances against lefties and allowed nine homers in 546 plate appearances against righties. Lefties OPS’d .834 off Gore while righties OPS’d only .704. Last season, Gore primarily threw three different pitch types. He threw a four-seamer 55.4 percent of the time and averaged 96 MPH on it, the 18th-fasted among pitchers with over 1500 pitches thrown. He threw a curve 82.8 percent of the time and a cutter 14.2 percent of the time. He mixed in a change (9.3 percent), slider 1.3 percent and a sweeper 0.5 percent of the time.
Gore’s already making his third start of 2025 today. He’s been pretty good in his first two, allowing three runs in 11 innings. He turned in his best start of the season on Opening Day, throwing six one-hit innings with 13 strikeouts and no walks against a clearly very good Phillies lineup. He had a rougher go on Wednesday in Toronto, allowing three runs and nine hits over five innings.
Andy Pages sits against a lefty, which is definitely notable after his horrid route on a liner led to a Nationals run yesterday. He’s had a really rough start to the season (and should never have been relied on to play center in the first place. Tommy Edman gets the start in center with Miguel Rojas starting at second. Chris Taylor gets the start in left.
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Unfortunately, the answer to my six-year-old question was “all of them”.
My only hope when they announced they would go to the White House was an undefeated season until their visit, at which point they’d lose like six straight games or something. Instead they just went to kick it with a wanna-be dictator whose office has already done some heinous things. Among those (definitely not the most-terrible in the grand scheme of things, but the most relevant to the Dodgers) was attempting to erase the legacy of Jackie Robinson from the White House website. But remember, next Tuesday they’ll be honoring Robinson’s legacy on Jackie Robinson Day at Dodger Stadium.
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First pitch is at 3:45 and will be shown on Sportsnet LA.
