Tommy Edman delivers for Ohtani-less Dodgers in victory over Nationals

Sam Farmer, Los Angeles Times on Sep 6, 2026

Published in Baseball

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LOS ANGELES — It's too early to say the Los Angeles Dodgers have flipped the September switch the way they did last year.

But they certainly earned a collective bat flip Saturday night, after Tommy Edman hit a three-run homer in the seventh inning to wake up the offense and help his recently sputtering team to a 6-5 victory over the Washington Nationals.

In keeping with the way this season has gone for the Dodgers, the win didn't come without drama. The Nationals scored a run in the top of the ninth, and had runners on second and third before Tanner Scott closed the game with a strikeout.

The Dodgers, who endured a maddeningly balanced 13-14 record in August, have won three in a row — a bona fide winning streak — even without two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, who has missed the last three games because of injury.

Edman has replaced him as the leadoff hitter, and brought the Dodger Stadium crowd to its feet with a blast to right that cleared the bases of Alex Freeland and Kiké Hernández.

For much of the game, the Dodgers offense was as thin and fleeting as the sunset-lit, cotton-candy clouds over Chavez Ravine. The home team scored two runs in the first, then went largely dark until Edman's shot.

Worth noting is the Dodgers were 15-13 in August a year ago before picking up the pace with a 16-10 finish to the regular season on their way to a back-to-back World Series championship.

Tyler Glasnow gave up four runs on six hits in six innings, striking out eight. Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips each pitched a scoreless inning and Scott gave up a run in the ninth before striking out CJ Abrams with the go-ahead runs on base to earn the save.

Unclear is the status of Ohtani, who missed his third consecutive game — his longest absence as a Dodger. He's dealing with discomfort in his left knee, right biceps and neck, and that was evident Wednesday when he struck out four times and demonstrably winced at the plate while swinging, a strange sight for a player who is typically smiling or stoic.

The plan was for Ohtani to hit in the cages before the game Saturday — those are in the bowels of the stadium — and then assess how he feels a day later.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said if Ohtani isn't trending in the right direction Sunday, the team will need to give serious consideration to putting him on the injured list. Ohtani falls under the 15-day category for the IL, which covers pitchers and two-way players, as opposed to the 10-day list for position players. The Dodgers can backdate the move up to three days, akin to time served. So a 15-day window would be reduced to 12 days.

Although Roberts said before the game he had not spoken to Ohtani about how he feels physically, the manager said he had gotten a hint from the player's demeanor.

"When he doesn't feel well physically, he gets more short and he's not the same personality," Roberts said, noting that Ohtani has seemed looser and more easygoing the past couple of days.

Even so, Ohtani has gone the way of his teammates lately, enduring a seven-for-51 slump over his last 13 games.

Ohtani wasn't the only Dodgers player missing from the lineup. Third baseman Max Muncy was scratched because of illness, and catcher Dalton Rushing is dealing with discomfort in his right elbow, somewhat concerning since he only recently returned from a slight tear to his ulnar collateral ligament in the same elbow.

All-Star catcher Will Smith, who returned Sept. 1 after missing nearly three months with an inflamed disc in his neck, got a rousing ovation in the eighth when he stepped in to pinch hit for Hunter Feduccia. Smith struck out looking on a pitch that, upon review, just nicked the edge of the strike zone. He has been key to the success of the Dodgers, and having him back in the mix is a good sign for the team.