LOS ANGELES – Twenty-two-year-old slugger James Wood made his mark at Dodger Stadium by crushing a 451-foot home run in his first series at the historic ballpark.
Then Wood invited his teammates to the Nationals’ five-home run party, which was celebrated by veteran Nathaniel Lowe hitting his Nos. 100 and 101 career homers.
Luis García Jr. and CJ Abrams also went yard in the Nats’ 7-3 win over the Dodgers.
“It’s just fun,” said Wood. “It’s always good when the dugout’s jumping like that. The more the merrier.”
They tied the Nationals team record (2005-present) for most homers hit at Dodger Stadium, set on May 31, 2023, by Abrams, García, Jeimer Candelario and Keibert Ruiz (twice).
Saturday’s feat was accomplished in front of a sold-out crowd of 54,154.
“When your first four hitters go deep like that, it’s pretty awesome,” said Nationals manager Dave Martinez. “They came out swinging the bats. I can tell you now that the atmosphere didn’t bother those guys a bit, which was awesome to see.”
Wood crushed a solo home run to center field at 113.1 mph off right-hander Dustin May in the fourth inning. It was the longest-hit homer this season at Dodger Stadium, surpassing Shohei Ohtani’s 448-foot blast on April 16. Wood hit only the 19th 450-foot-plus home run at the park in the Statcast Era (since 2015, including the playoffs).
Wood, a lefty-hitter, tied his career-longest dinger. Eight days earlier, Wood also hit a 451-foot home run off Marlins righty Edward Cabrera at Nationals Park.
“Obviously talented, big power, looks over the baseball really well,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on Wood. “He’s had a lot of success against us so far. I think you just have to slow him down, get him off the fastball, try to work ahead. It just seems like we’ve made some mistakes to him. But yeah, really talented, and you got to try not to put him in a position to beat you.”
Wood has hit 21 home runs in his first full season in the Major Leagues. He is tied with Kyle Schwarber, Aaron Judge and Mike Trout for second-most 450-plus foot home runs this year. Eugenio Suárez leads the category with three.
The speed at which Wood’s home run sped through the Los Angeles air gave him the Major League lead for the most 110-plus mph homers this season (12).
“We were just getting our pitch and we were hitting it hard and in the air somewhere,” said Wood. “Props to the whole lineup, really. I feel like everyone was having good at-bats today.”
Luis García Jr.
Following Wood’s at-bat, García crushed the Nationals’ fifth back-to-back home run of the season. He jumped on a first-pitch sinker from May and launched it 414 feet to center field at 105.5 mph. García extended his recent stretch of solid hitting. He is batting .364 with eight hits, two home runs and six RBIs in his last seven games.
“He’s a good fastball-up hitter,” said Martinez. “He was ready to hit. He got a good fastball and he put a good swing on it. But that’s what he does. When he’s going well, as we can see, he hits the ball really hard.”
Nathaniel Lowe
Lowe reached his 100th career home run milestone in the sixth inning. He also went deep against May, who threw a cutter in the zone which Lowe belted 374 feet to left field.
Lowe wasn’t done, though. Facing reliever Lou Trivino in the eighth inning, Lowe sent a changeup 104 mph to center field for a distance of 395 feet.
“It’s super cool,” said Lowe. “I just never would have thought that [100 home runs] would have been an option. Now that it’s over with and the next one’s done, too, we’ve got to keep pushing. It’s pretty encouraging. It’s really rewarding for a whole lot of hard work and a lot of time put in. So it’s a special moment, but obviously more special we won today, too.”
Saturday was Lowe’s sixth multi-home run game of his seven-year career and the first of this season.
CJ Abrams
Abrams homered in the ninth inning of Friday’s game, and he picked up where he left off. Abrams hit his second home run in as many nights with a 401-foot two-run dinger against Jack Dreyer in the seventh inning. Dreyer had not allowed a homer in his first season in the Major Leagues.
“We’re a good baseball team, plain and simple,” said right-hander Jake Irvin, who struck out seven and allowed two runs in 5 1/3 innings. “We have a lot of good talent here, and guys want to rise to the occasion when we play teams like that.”