Dodgers’ most-booed reliever almost blows it in his return before they beat Nationals

The final score looked like a laugher for the Dodgers, who used a two-run home run from J.D. Martinez in the seventh and a three-run inning in the eighth to pull away for a 9-3 victory over the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night.

But there was no chuckling among the 46,571 fans in Dodger Stadium in the top of the seventh — only hearty boos echoed through the ravine — when reliever Alex Vesia came perilously close to blowing a three-run lead.

Dodgers right-hander Tony Gonsolin gave up one run and three hits in six efficient but hardly dominant innings, striking out two and walking two in a 70-pitch start, and he handed the ball to Vesia to start the seventh with a 4-1 lead.

Vesia, a breakout relief star last year, was demoted to triple A early this month after going 0-2 with a 7.84 earned-run average in 13 games, but the left-hander was recalled Tuesday after giving up five hits with no earned runs and striking out 18 in 9-1/3 innings of his last nine games for Oklahoma City.

“I felt like I was fighting my mechanics and trying to get into different positions that I wasn’t able to get into,” Vesia said before the game. “One little tweak with my front leg led to the ball coming out of my hand a lot easier and with more life.”

There was plenty of life on Vesia’s pitches Tuesday night … after they left the bats of the Nationals. Keibert Ruiz lined Vesia’s first pitch, an elevated 94-mph fastball, into the left-field seats for a homer that cut the Dodgers’ lead to 4-2, the ball leaving his bat at 103 mph.

Vesia struck out CJ Abrams and got Ildemaro Vargas to ground out, but Lane Thomas doubled and scored on Luis Garcia’s single to make it 4-3.

Jeimer Candelario walked to put two on, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts summoned closer Evan Phillips to face cleanup man Joey Meneses, who grounded out to short to end the inning.

Martinez gave the Dodgers breathing room in the bottom of the seventh with his towering, two-run shot to center field — his ninth homer in 18 games — off reliever Andres Machado for a 6-3 lead.

Phillips retired the side in order in the eighth, and the Dodgers added three runs in the bottom half with a hit batter, a Nationals error, a wild pitch and a solo homer by Freddie Freeman, who extended his hit streak to 19 games with a four-hit night.

“They scored a couple of runs there in the seventh, and it’s just kind of what we’ve been doing the last few weeks — grinding out each and every at-bat, no matter what the inning, no matter what the score,” Freeman said. “We’re down, we’re going to make it a game. Today, once they scored a couple runs, we came back and hit them back.”

Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia throws during the sixth inning against the Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.

(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

Freeman and Martinez have been doing most of the heavy hitting. Freeman is batting .455 (35 for 77) with five homers, 12 doubles, 21 RBIs and 18 runs during his streak, raising his average to .344 with a 1.005 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.

Martinez is batting .310 (22 for 71) with eight homers, four doubles and 24 RBIs in 17 games since returning from a lower-back injury, raising his average to .277 with a .922 OPS.

“Just keeping it simple, staying stubborn to my approach and trying to ride it as long as you can,” Freeman said. “These kinds of things don’t usually last this long, so I’ve been trying to hold on to it.”

Martinez said he is in a good rhythm at the plate and benefiting from production up and down the lineup. Jason Heyward hit a solo homer in the second inning, and Mookie Betts (single), Freeman (single) and Max Muncy (RBI double) keyed a three-run third that Martinez capped with a sacrifice fly.

“It’s a potent lineup — you look around, and four or five guys on any given night can hurt you,” Martinez said. “Someone always seems to step up every night. It takes a lot of pressure off everybody else, because guys are always on base.”

Gonsolin improved to 3-1 with a 1.77 ERA in seven starts but was hardly overpowering. He induced only four swinging strikes, and nine of the 18 balls the Nationals put in play against him were hit 95 mph or harder.

“From the first pitch, he didn’t have much tonight,” Roberts said. “It was a gritty performance. There were a lot of hard outs. He was working behind hitters. The breaking ball, the curveball were up in the zone a lot. The changeup was missing arm-side. The fastball wasn’t commanded. He did a good job of getting outs when he needed to.”

Gonsolin retired the last 11 batters he faced with considerable help from his defense, David Peralta making a sliding catch in shallow left field and Freeman a back-hand stab of Vargas’ 100-mph one-hopper to end the fourth, and second baseman Betts digging out Corey Dickerson 101-mph one-hopper to end the sixth.

Daniel Hudson, who hasn’t pitched this season, completed a 30-pitch bullpen workout at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.