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For seven innings Sunday, the Nationals were both lucky and good. They’d pulled away from the Dodgers with a fortuitous bounce and a big bat. They’d kept baseball’s richest roster in check with starting pitcher Foster Griffin’s seven-pitch mix. For seven innings, they’d set themselves up for an Easter Sunday win and a streak-snapping series finale.

But to beat the defending World Series champions requires a certain amount of skill and a certain amount of luck. And, in the eighth inning, the Nationals ran out of both.

The Dodgers scored four runs in the decisive frame, battering a bullpen that they’d thinned earlier in the weekend, to surge ahead for an 8-6 win before an announced 24,899 at Nationals Park. Washington (3-6), which won three of its first four games this season, has since lost a Major League Baseball-worst five in a row.

“It’s tough, especially with the way the last couple days have gone,” manager Blake Butera said. “We had to use a lot of open arms those first two days in the series. But I thought we had enough to get through there.”

Superstar Shohei Ohtani, one of three Dodgers with multiple RBIs Sunday, put Los Angeles (7-2) ahead for good in the top of the eighth with a sacrifice fly that scored Santiago Espinal. The Nationals’ 6-3 lead had by then faded into oblivion; Freddie Freeman, Andy Pages and Alex Call all scored after opening the frame against reliever Cionel Pérez with a single, a double and a walk, respectively.

It was the second straight series finale the Nationals’ bullpen frittered away. On Wednesday, Washington watched a 5-1 lead go up in smoke against the Phillies, the second of three 2025 playoff teams the Nationals have opened the season against.

“We’ve been playing good baseball,” Pérez said. “This team is pretty united. We’re all together. We’re working hard. I hope things are going to go our way.”

Until Griffin stepped onto the mound Sunday, the Dodgers’ offense had operated with an air of inevitability and invulnerability in Washington. They scored a combined 23 runs and roughed up starters Miles Mikolas and Jake Irvin in comfortable wins Friday and Saturday.

Griffin kept Los Angeles guessing. He struck out the first three Dodgers he faced, all swinging, and punched out six overall in five innings, allowing just one earned run, a homer to Ohtani. He toggled among his cutter, fastball, curveball, sweeper, changeup, splitter and sinker, building on an impressive debut in a blowout win last week in Philadelphia.

“I’m trying to get through their lineup,” said Griffin, who leads the Nationals’ starting pitchers in innings pitched (10) and ERA (2.70). “I’m trying to mix it up a bunch, keep them guessing, because if you get predictable ... they’re going to do damage, and they’re going to do it fast.”

At the plate, the Nationals answered Ohtani’s third-inning solo shot with a two-run blast from Luis García Jr. in the bottom of the third, then built on their advantage. Good fortune was on their side.

In the fourth inning, Keibert Ruiz got a hitter’s count and an 86-mph, two-out offering from starter Rōki Sasaki that hung invitingly over the middle of the plate. But he swung at the slider half-heartedly, as if he expected to foul it off.

The ball had other plans. It hugged the first base line and skittered toward Freeman, waiting near the edge of the infield. Better to be lucky than good — Ruiz’s grounder caromed off first base and kicked well over Freeman’s head, the single scoring CJ Abrams from second base.

Even better to be lucky, then good. Two batters later, James Wood blasted a three-run homer for a 6-1 lead, only his second hit of the series.

The Nationals, who averaged 5.7 runs per game over the weekend as they built on a hot start, needed more. Their advantage came undone quickly. Relievers PJ Poulin, Clayton Beeter, Andre Granillo and Pérez combined to allow seven earned runs and six hits in four innings.

Afterward, Wood said the Nationals “can hang with anybody.” They’d won their season-opening series against the Cubs, then had nearly taken a second against the Phillies. But with a trip home came a punishing reminder of their margin for error. The Dodgers do not need long to ransack seven innings of good baseball and good breaks.

“It’s a tough one,” Butera said. “It’s a really tough one. Thought we had it all the way through up until there at the very end. Just want them to keep going. It’s a long season. Keep going. Stay positive. Just keep controlling what you can control. I thought our hitters did a really good job against some more tough arms again to get us six runs that we felt good about it. It was just those last couple innings.”

This article has been updated.