April 7, 2025: James Wood’s homer, Kyle Finnegan’s five-out save lead Nationals win over Dodgers

There was an early-season buzz following the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in 2025. No wonder. Despite losing a two-out-of-three weekend series to the Philadelphia Phillies, the Dodgers’ eight-game winning streak to start the season was the best by a defending champion in baseball history.1 Tongue in cheek, the mainstream media had enjoyed speculating on the possibility of a 162-0 season. Bill Plaschke, writing in the Los Angeles Times after their record extended to 8-0, posed the question, “It could never happen. But … are you willing to say it can’t happen?”2

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Scott Ostler suggested a more practical response to a more plausible outcome. “The MLB record for wins is 116, and anyone associated with the 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners should already have their congratulatory telegrams to the Dodgers written.”3

The opening of the Dodgers’ three-game series against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park had all the elements to fit the occasion for this fan’s trip to the ballpark. The visiting team was the reigning World Series champion, and the home team was clearly still in a rebuilding mode, desperately searching for a playoff-contending identity after compiling the worst record in baseball, 288-420, over the previous five seasons. Who knows what might be in store for either team or their fans on this night? The beauty of a baseball game is its unpredictability.

When you win the World Series, you get to celebrate, just as the Dodgers did when they won the 2024 World Series, highlighted by Freddie Freeman’s dramatic walk-off grand slam in Game One.4 Of course, the Dodgers also won the 2020 World Series, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in six games, all in a mostly empty Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, after a pandemic-shortened 60-game season.5 Celebration? Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy captured the mood. “It was just like it happened, and then it was over. We never really got to celebrate.”6

As for the Nationals, their celebration after winning the 2019 World Series ended with a parade and the circumstance of no fans in the ballpark for the 2020 season.7

It was a cold night for baseball (45ºF) with plenty of empty seats throughout Nationals Park, but there was a sense of anticipation amongst vocal Dodgers fans in the crowd (22,546) for the series opener. After the game, Nationals’ left fielder James Wood observed, “A lot of Dodgers fans, I was getting chirped a little bit … They brought the atmosphere with them. It was good to match that.”8 Nationals’ closer Kyle Finnegan echoed the sentiment, “Felt like a playoff game.”9

MacKenzie Gore was making his third start of the season for the Nationals after a dazzling one-hit, no-decision Opening Day start in which he struck out 13 Philadelphia Phillies over six innings. The oft-injured Dustin May started for the Dodgers for only the second time since May 2023. A week earlier, in his first start of the season, May yielded only one hit and one unearned run in five innings of work in a no-decision against the Atlanta Braves.

The Nationals struck first thanks to shoddy Dodgers’ fielding. May walked Josh Bell to open the second inning and Paul DeJong’s single to center moved Bell to second. José Tena’s unsuccessful sacrifice attempt left runners on first and second. Shortstop Mookie Betts misjudged Dylan Crews’ one-hopper, allowing DeJong to score an unearned run. Wood, the next batter, hit an even more routine grounder to second that Miguel Rojas booted, allowing Crews to score. Two unearned runs and a 2-0 Nationals lead.

The Dodgers responded in the third with two outs when Chris Taylor singled to center. Gore then threw a 2-and-0 fastball in the heart of the strike zone that Shohei Ohtani hit into the Nationals’ bullpen for his fourth homer of the season.10 2-2.

Now it was the Nationals’ turn to respond with their version of small ball.11 Luis García Jr. opened the third inning with an infield single, stole second base and advanced to third on Keibert Ruiz’s groundout to shortstop. Garcia scored when Nathaniel Lowe lined a single to right. The Nationals led, 3-2.

Midway through the game, two defensive gems had already helped the Nationals cause. Right fielder Alex Call made a diving catch of Max Muncy’s liner to open the third inning. To open the fifth inning, shortstop DeJong made a diving stop deep in the hole and threw out Rojas. Two batters later, Ohtani laced an inconsequential triple, the ball hitting off the top of the wall in center.12

On the pitching side, both Gore and May earned a quality start for six innings of work.13 Gore finished with seven strikeouts on 100 pitches and May allowed only one earned run. Now it would be up to the respective bullpens. Reliever Eduardo Salazar did his part, retiring the Dodgers in order in the seventh inning, That shutdown set the stage for the bottom of the seventh inning.

Amed Rosario, pinch-hitting for Tena, singled to left off southpaw Anthony Banda to open the inning and promptly stole second on the first pitch to Crews, who eventually flied out to right field. That brought up Wood, a midseason 2024 debut, who was batting in the leadoff spot for the first time in his career. On Banda’s 1-and-2 slider, Wood hit an opposite-field, two-run homer, his second of the season. Washington’s advantage was 5-2, but the inning was not over.

After Call doubled, Matt Sauer replaced Banda. When García greeted Sauer with a single to center, Call hesitated between second and third and was thrown out at the plate, Tommy Edman-to-Will Smith. García took second on the throw and scored on Ruiz’s double down the right-field line. The Nationals led, 6-2.

Lucas Sims replaced Salazar to start the eighth and walked Michael Conforto, who advanced to second on a passed ball with Ohtani at the plate. After Sims struck out Ohtani looking, a single by Betts scored the third Dodgers’ run. Edman singled to right, bringing the tying run to the plate, Nationals manager Dave Martinez to the mound, and Finnegan in from the bullpen.

Finnegan was pitching for the third consecutive day, having earned a save in each of the previous two games against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Another save would be of the five-out variety. Finnegan retired the side in the eighth, but not before Smith’s single to center scored Betts with the fourth Dodgers’ run. Ohtani and a cliff-hanger awaited in the top of the ninth inning.14

When Muncy opened the ninth with a double to left center, it meant that Finnegan was about to face several tying-run-at-the-plate situations. Pinch-hitter Hunter Feduccia grounded out to second, advancing Muncy to third, and Finnegan struck out Conforto for the second out.

The ninth-inning drama brought Ohtani, the reigning National League MVP, to the plate, a double from the cycle, and Finnegan walked him on a full count. With the go-ahead run at the plate, Finnegan induced Betts to ground to second, stranding both runners and securing his fourth save of the season. Martinez later revealed Finnegan’s declaration when he returned to the dugout after the eighth inning, “I could get you three outs.”15 He did!

As for Wood’s bat, it stayed hot on the next night. The Nationals clinched a series win with an 8-2 victory, thanks in large measure to Wood’s two home runs and five runs batted in.

The Dodgers finished the regular season with a 93-69 record, good for first place in the NL West Division, and were rewarded with a return to postseason baseball.16 Meanwhile, the Nationals’ season seemed to unravel by June, a month that included an 11-game losing streak and a 7-19 record. Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo were both fired in early July and replaced in the interim by Miguel Cairo and Mike DeBartolo, respectively.17 After a disappointing 66-96 season, the rebuild continued into 2026 for the Nationals under new leadership – president of baseball operations, Paul Toboni, and manager Blake Butera.18

Did the MLB schedule-makers have a sequel in mind when they completed their work for the 2026 season? Perhaps. The season’s home opener at Nationals Park begins a three-game series against the back-to-back World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, triumphant in a Game Seven thriller against the Toronto Blue Jays. Certainly worthy of another trip to the ballpark.

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by John Fredland.

Sources

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202504070.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2025/B04070WAS2025.htm). The 2025 Topps baseball cards, James Wood (WSH-11) and Kyle Finnegan (WSH-13), are provided from the author’s collection.

Notes

1 Bill Plaschke, “Who Says the Dodgers Can’t Go 162-0? Dramatic win over Braves extends a perfect start,” LATimes.com, April 2, 2025, latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2025-04-02/dodgers-162-0-plaschke.

2 Plaschke.

3 Scott Ostler, “The Dodgers Won’t Go 162-0, but Giants Fans Should Be Afraid, Very Afraid,” SFChronicle.com, April 4, 2025, sfchronicle.newsbank.com/doc/news/19FC1BCE57CD8950?pdate=2025-04-04.

4 Of course, Dodgers fans are reminded of a similar drama and celebration in Game One of the 1988 World Series, highlighted by Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run. In fact, the two celebrations are linked in broadcast voices, Joe Davis’s Gibby Meet Freddie with the drama in Vin Scully’s call of the Gibson walk-off. (Darren Gibson, “October 15, 1988: Kirk Gibson’s ‘Impossible’ Home Run Wins World Series Opener for Dodgers,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Accessed December 2025.)

5 Glen Sparks, “Dodgers Win World Series in 2020 COVID Season,” in Bill Nowlin/Glen Sparks, ed., Dodger Stadium: Blue Heaven on Earth (Phoenix: SABR, 2024), 79.

6 Jack Harris, “Dodgers Lament Muted Celebration of 2020 World Series Title,” LATimes.com, July 20, 2023.

7 Steven C. Weiner, “October 30, 2019: Clutch Pitching, Late Hitting Lead Washington Nationals to World Series title,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Accessed December 2025.

8 Spencer Nusbaum, “Wood’s Big Shot Carries the Nats Past Los Angeles,” Washington Post, April 8, 2025: D1.

9 Nusbaum.

10 Nusbaum.

11 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 795. small ball – “A style of offensive play that relies less on home runs than on execution of basic fundamentals such as sacrifice hits, squeeze bunts, hit-and-run plays, advancing or hitting behind the runner, pickoffs, double steals, infield hits, taking advantage of walks and errors, and putting the ball in play.”

12 Jack Harris, “Dodgers’ Defensive Woes Doom Them to Their Third Loss in Four Games,” LATimes.com, April 7, 2025, latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2025-04-07/dodgers-defensive-woes-loss-washington-nationals.

13 Dickson, 681. quality start – “A statistic credited to a starting pitcher who pitches at least six innings and allows three or fewer earned runs.

14 Dickson, 194. cliff-hanger – “A close, hotly contested contest whose outcome is decided late in the game.”

15 Nusbaum.

16 Several Nationals players mentioned in this essay did have a chance to play in the 2025 postseason as the result of trade deadline deals – Amed Rosario (New York Yankees), Kyle Finnegan (Detroit Tigers), and Alex Call (Dodgers). The Nationals received minor leaguers in return with one exception. Relief pitcher Clayton Beeter, obtained from the Dodgers, pitched for the Nationals during the 2025 season – 24 games, 21 2/3 innings, 0-2 record, 2.49 ERA.

17 Spencer Nusbaum, Andrew Golden, “Last-place Nationals Fire Manager Dave Martinez and GM Mike Rizzo,” Washington Post, July 6, 2025.

18 Spencer Nusbaum, Andrew Golden, “Nats Tab Butera as Next Skipper,” Washington Post, October 31, 2025: B7.