Dodgers starter emerges stronger after setbacks

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Dustin May (Instagram via d_maydabeast)

By Fabian Ardaya

In July, when he first believed his journey back to the mound was near its end, Dustin May thought he had found it.

May, a Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander, had been fiddling with his breaking ball for years, a tornado of a pitch that spun more than just about any in the sport and whose movement profile was so vast that no one knew what to call it. It was officially labeled a curveball. His coaches called it a slider. More than anything, you could call it effective.

This was the pitch May hoped would give him a foothold, even with a twice-repaired elbow. Now it was back and potentially better than ever after he had found a new mental cue when he delivered it.

Then came the night that changed his life forever and put his career on ice again. May tore his esophagus on July 10 when a piece of lettuce lodged in his throat during dinner. He required emergency surgery and was hospitalized for 11 days.

May recovered from that scare and has returned to a big league mound after 22 months away. Each start he has made has been building a resume after years cut short by injury.

More than just a feel-good story, May has said, he just wants to pitch. He is important for the Dodgers, not only in the short term as they wait for reinforcements but also for when the games get more important than on cold nights in April.

He is not the same pitcher he was before. He might be even better.

The key comes with that breaking ball. Statcast calls it a sweeper now. Whatever you call it, May had it April 14, when he overwhelmed a paltry Colorado Rockies lineup over six innings. He toyed with them, using the pitch early in counts to steal strikes, then burying some in the dirt. He would break into left-handed hitters’ hands to keep them off the inner half of the plate, as he did to strike out Ryan McMahon to end the first inning. Then he would snap one off that broke and caught the outside corner, as he did to Zac Veen in the third.

When a two-strike backdoor breaking ball missed the plate by an inch to Michael Toglia in the fourth inning, May bounced on his toes from the mound. Then he fired another one that broke toward the left-handed batter’s hip. Toglia waved right over it.

“He’s always kind of been an east-west guy, but now to work the front-back, he’s just more of a dynamic pitcher now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

May threw 28 sweepers on the night. Nearly half of them resulted in either a called strike or a swing-and-miss. He finished the night with seven strikeouts. Five came on the breaking ball.

It is a devastating weapon. May’s fastball has not quite ticked back up to the triple-digit velocity it was before he underwent Tommy John surgery, then a Tommy John revision and a flexor tendon repair that cost him most of three seasons. But it still has wicked tailing movement. Pair it with this version of a breaking ball, and he has the kind of mirrored movement profile that can bend opposing lineups to his will.

“Being able to strike the breaking ball and then use the sinker off of it was huge, and being able to command both of them was big tonight,” May said after the Rockies game.

In that outing against Colorado, May kept the Rockies without a hit until the fourth inning. He allowed only one run, a sharp Kyle Farmer grounder that hugged the third-base line and scored a runner from first base. He completed six innings and could have gone further, needing a tidy 76 pitches to complete his night’s work. He did not attempt to overpower his opposition with a diet of fastballs, as a younger version of himself would have. The Rockies wilted anyway.

“There’s been a lot of maturity,” Roberts said. “I think that he understands that more is not always more as far as effort or trying to bully hitters. He knows how to pitch and make pitches.”

“I think this time around, he really understands,” shortstop Mookie Betts said. “It seems like he has a better understanding of what it takes, how to stay healthy, what kind of pitcher he is.”

The win over the Rockies was May’s first major league win in 709 days. It did not come with a commemorative baseball, nor did May want one.

“It’s huge just to be able to go out and pitch,” May said. “Even if it wasn’t good, it would be huge for me because I haven’t been able to do it for so long, and it almost got taken away. Being able to contribute and be kind of decent is huge.”

He has been more than just kind of decent so far.

“He’s gotten a lot better,” Roberts said.

Which is not to say dominant, perhaps befitting a work in progress. As of his most recent start on Monday -- a no-decision against the Miami Marlins in which he went 5.1 innings, allowing five hits and three earned runs while striking out three and walking three before the Dodgers eked out a 7-6 win on Tommy Edman’s walk-off, two-run single in the 10th inning -- May is 1-1 over five starts (27.1 innings pitched), with a 3.95 ERA, 22 strikeouts and an above-average WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) of 1.24.