Dustin May has been a workhorse for the Los Angeles Dodgers this season, which has been both a surprise given his injury history and a need for the club given the state of their pitching staff.
May has already blown by his previous career-high in innings with 89.2 this season, topping his previous best of 56 in 2020.
His career has been a challenge so far as he’s dealt with numerous injuries, including a life-threatening esophagus issue last year. But that’s all behind him, and he turned in the best start of his career on Thursday.
May took a perfect game into the sixth inning against the Chicago White Sox before losing it with one out on a single to the right side. While May had a chance to make history deep into the game, his previous health issues gave him some perspective to not look ahead too much.
“I’m just trying to live in a three-foot world,” May said. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my career so far. I don’t try to look too far ahead at all. I’m just trying to stay one pitch at a time.”
Getting 16 outs to start the game while being efficient helped the right-hander go deep into the game. It also marked the first time in his career he’s gone eight innings, which is something he was proud of.
“Yeah, getting guys out quick is awesome,” May said. “I haven’t really been able to do that this year, so it was definitely good to be able to get guys out quick and have some quick innings.”
The start was also an important bounce back outing for May after he allowed four runs in four innings against the Kansas City Royals his last time out.
“He was really good,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was good to see him bounce back from that game in Kansas City. I thought the delivery was fantastic. I thought the pitch execution, getting strike one, very efficient.
“I thought Dalton did a fantastic job with the fingers, receiving, all that stuff. So the battery today was really good.
“He was efficient enough, I felt he earned the opportunity to get into the eighth inning and then he couldn’t put (Brooks) Baldwin away. Gave up the home run and I just felt that was good for tonight. But really fantastic outing from Dustin.”
May ended up finishing his start going 7+ innings, allowing two runs on four hits with nine strikeouts and one walk.
“I was feeling good,” May said. “I was able to execute some throws. I was just trying to go as deep as I could.”
Dustin May pitching with confidence
The results haven’t always been there for May this season as he’s posted a 4.52 ERA, but after missing most of the previous two seasons, it would have been unfair to expect great results immediately.
But being someone who can take the ball every start and pitch deep into games has value, and May is providing that. Being able to make all 16 of his starts this season has both been encouraging and provided confidence to May.
“I mean, my confidence is high,” May said. “I’ve been able to go out and I haven’t missed a start — knock on wood.
“I’ve been able to go out and give them a chance to win for a lot of my outings, which is a good thing. Just going to try and build off this one.”
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