Getting The Second Half Off To A Good Start

The Dodgers got the second half of the season off to a good start on the road by beating the Washington Nationals 3-2 last night. Hanley Ramirez hit a two-run homer (his 9th) over the right centerfield fence in the top of the third inning off of Nationals ace Stephen Strasborg that drove in Adrian Gonzalez to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead. Ramirez may hit the hardest homeruns in the the major leagues because that ball left the field in a hurry. Andre Ethier hit his 6th homerun in the top of the ninth off of Nationals closer Rafael Soriano that barely cleared the rightfield fence to provide the winning margin. Kenley Jansen got the save with a scoreless bottom of the ninth, striking out two. Ricky Nolasco got his third start of his Dodgers tenure and he went 5 1/3 innings, giving up 2 earned runs, and Jose Dominguez (1), Paco Rodriguez (1 1/3), and Ronald Belisario (1/3), all came in and pitched scoreless relief in support of Nolasco. Belisario (4-5) got credit for the win. Yasiel Puig may have gone 0 for 4 in the game but he made the defensive plan making a running catch of a foul ball in the right field corner, crashing into the fence and holding on to the ball.