Los Angeles Dodgers: Going for the series split against Washington

The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently down two games to one with a chance to walk away with a 2-2 series split against the Washington Nationals.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have had two tough losses against the Washington Nationals over the last three days after winning 10 games in a row in their home ballpark entering this series.

The Dodgers were blanked in the first game of the series as Patrick Corbin fired seven scoreless innings and the Nationals offense banged in six runs. The Dodgers got their revenge on Friday, though, with a 5-0 victory and dominant outing from both Kenta Maeda and Julio Urias.

Saturday’s game was billed as a pitching duel between Walker Buehler and Max Scherzer and it was just that, at least initially. Buehler fired seven scoreless innings, allowing just four hits and striking out seven.

Scherzer was nearly as good but it was the one extra hit that he allowed in his seven innings, which was a two-run home run off the bat of Justin Turner. As long as the bullpen held things together it would have been a nice victory for the Dodgers.

An error from Turner and a rough outing from Pedro Baez gave the Nationals life. Scott Alexander allowed a run on a base hit, when Dylan Floro came in and struck out Anthony Rendon for a huge second out.

Then Floro, as nails as he has been to start the season, allowed a two-strike, two-out grand slam to Dodger-killer Gerardo Parra. One strike away from going into the ninth with a 2-1 lead.

It sucks but it happens in baseball, especially when you play 162 games. All that matters now is if the team can respond from this loss positively and split the series with the Nats.

As part of our Los Angeles Dodgers Beat the Streak series, here is who we think will get a base hit in Sunday’s outing to lead to that series sweep.

Jason’s pick (Current streak: 3): Cody Bellinger

The Los Angeles Dodgers are coming up against Stephen Strasburg on Sunday, who the team rightfully does not do very well against. Out of all of the hitters on the roster, A.J. Pollock is the only one with impressive stats against Strasburg and he is obviously out of action.

If you remove Pollock, the Dodgers are hitting just .145 against Strasburg with 30 strikeouts in 76 at-bats. Not the most promising of stats when you are going for the series split.

Today we are going against the grain and predicting that someone is going to break a trend when usually we go with the trend. Cody Bellinger is a lifetime 0-11 against Strasburg in the regular season with four strikeouts.

Bellinger is yet to hit a home run in May and the ball is going to be flying a little bit further with it being an afternoon game. Bellinger is going to get ahold of a breaking ball in the zone and send a towering shot to the visiting bullpen.