LA nets 7th straight: 'Good, winning baseball'

WASHINGTON -- During the Dodgers' visit to the White House on Friday, President Joe Biden said that he thinks “we might be doing this again by the end of the year,” essentially challenging L.A. to repeat as World Series champions.

If the Dodgers keep playing like they have over the last week, the president might just be right.

After losing four consecutive games last week, including an ugly no-hit performance against the Cubs on Thursday, the Dodgers have responded with seven consecutive wins following a 10-5 victory over the Nationals on Friday at Nationals Park.

• Box score

“It’s good, winning baseball,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “Right now, we’re playing really good baseball. We had a great day at the White House, and we’ll be ready to win a baseball game tomorrow.”

But even more important than the current winning streak is that the Dodgers are, once again, looking like the team everyone expected them to be at the beginning of the season. The same one that started the season with a 13-2 record and the same one that is looking for a ninth consecutive division title. That’s a scary sight for the rest of the league. The Nationals experienced that on Friday.

Max Scherzer continued his recent dominance, holding the Dodgers to just one run over six innings of work. Justin Turner was the only one to capitalize on a Scherzer mistake, launching a solo homer in the fourth. But once Scherzer came out, the Dodgers’ offense started feeling like themselves, much like they have over the last week.

The Dodgers erupted with nine runs in the seventh inning against the Nats’ bullpen. Most impressively, however, is that they did their damage in multiple ways. They drew walks, kept the line moving with singles, and also hit for power.

Mookie Betts continued his resurgence, giving the Dodgers a 4-3 lead with a two-run single off Sam Clay. Max Muncy’s good mojo also continued as he got jammed on a pitch that fell into left field for a two-run single. AJ Pollock put the finishing touches on the inning, blasting a two-run homer to put the Dodgers up by seven.

A team has scored eight or more runs in an inning 16 times this season. The Dodgers are responsible for five of those after Friday’s outburst. No other team has more than two such innings.

“I think it’s definitely coming,” Turner said of the Dodgers’ offense. “The at-bat quality has been there, the results haven’t always been there, but we fully anticipate those things to swing in the other direction for a lot of guys because we know the quality of ABs.”

While the Dodgers’ offense stole the show on Friday, left-hander Julio Urías worked around some early bad luck and put together another impressive outing. The Nationals were aided by a Turner throwing error and scored three runs in the second. Urías then settled in, allowing three runs (one earned) on just three hits.

Urías’ workload has been a topic of conversation given that the left-hander is already at a career high in innings at the big league level. But he has cooled some of those concerns, allowing three earned runs and striking out 15 in his last 11 1/3 innings.

The Dodgers are getting healthy and things are starting to click for the defending champs.

“We have everything. We have the enthusiasm, we have the team, we have the talent to get back and compete for another championship,” Urías said in Spanish. “That’s our mentality and just give 100 percent out on the field.”