GLENDALE, Ariz. – When Dustin May struck out Oscar Gonzalez to end the first inning of Sunday’s Cactus League game between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, the tall redhead spun off the mound, raised his hands to the sky and then buried his face in his hat as he walked to the dugout.
It had been a long time. May hadn’t pitched in a game since May 2023 and much had happened to him since. He had a second elbow surgery, this time to repair the flexor tendon and complete a Tommy John revision, and he had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery last July when he tore his esophagus.
May wasn’t sure he would ever get the chance to pitch again.
“It felt amazing just to be back,” he said. “A huge, huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, it feels like. Just getting back in the dugout afterward – even if it wouldn’t have been a clean inning – just getting back in the dugout and feeling good and being here, it was really, really heavy.”
All of that was running through his head as he left the mound – but one thought, in particular.
“I’m alive. I’m glad I’m here,” he said, adding that it felt “like a new beginning.”
After spending five hours in surgery, 11 days in the hospital and weeks on soft food causing him to lose 40 pounds after last year’s torn esophagus, it would also be a relief to May if he could just focus on pitching going forward.
“(Shoot), I hope so,” he said with a smile. “I don’t know what else I need to do, but I really, really hope that this is just pitching from now on forward.”
He ran into trouble out of the gate, giving up an infield single then hitting the second batter. But he rebounded to get a ground ball for a double play and the strikeout of Gonzalez. May threw 15 pitches, touching 95 mph with his fastball – a step down from the 97.7 mph he has averaged throughout his career.
“Velo for me right now, I don’t really care about it at all,” he said. “Just glad to be here. … if it goes up, it goes up. If it stays there, I’m going to be just fine. As long as I’m throwing strikes with everything, everything’s gonna be fine.”
The rest of his pitch mix – including a slider he has started to throw with a new grip – is “back to normal,” May said.
“All the shapes and metrics and releases and everything are back to normal,” May said.
Pitching coach Mark Prior gave the same report.
“The heater is very similar. It’s definitely some sink and a lot of run,” Prior said. “He’s tweaked his – let’s just call it (his) slider grip. Same sweep, but it’s got a little bit more depth at times. But his stuff is relatively the same.
“Bullpens are one thing and games are different, but for the most part, it’s still pretty electric and pretty unbelievable what comes out of that arm.”
Had he returned from his second elbow surgery on time last year, he would have slipped right back into the Dodgers’ starting rotation. But they have acquired an entire rotation since he last pitched in the majors. Returning starters like May and Tony Gonsolin (plus candidates like Bobby Miller and Landon Knack) will have to fight for a place now.
“They’ve handled it really well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the group of young starters). “Kind of where their mindset is right now is to take care of their own business, to pitch well. And as we get further on in spring training, it gets a little bit more anxious, obviously, but I hope that they can all keep that same mindset, because things can change in an instant, but the things that they can control is most important, and it’s kind of part of being a part of this organization. There’s just a lot of talent, a lot of depth, but each guy is going to be called on if they’re healthy and they perform.”
That’s fine with May whose confidence remains intact. “I’m good enough to be at the top of any rotation when I’m healthy,” he asserted earlier in camp. He was asked again to speculate on what his place might be in this group of Dodgers’ starters.
“I’m just here for the ride,” he said Sunday with another smile.
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WORKING IN
Rookie right-hander Roki Sasaki was scheduled to throw a bullpen session during Sunday’s workout but he did it inside “The Lab” instead. The Lab is the large indoor facility next to the main training building. It houses state-of-the-art technology to track biomechanics and assorted metrics of both hitting and pitching workouts.
“We threw him in a cage and got some technology on him, just to kind of get a baseline for him,” Prior said of the approximately 30-pitch session. “It’s something that we do with all of our pitchers, all the way through, up and down through the organization. That’s the beauty of that big building.”
Sasaki is scheduled to see his first game action since joining the Dodgers on Tuesday. But it won’t be in a Cactus League game yet. He will pitch in a “B” game against minor-leaguers from the Chicago White Sox camp on one of the minor-league fields.
“We have a lot of guys that we’re building up and given different rest intervals that these guys have, guys are gonna fall on top of each other on certain days. And so we have to figure out ways to get people innings,” Prior said. “So you’re going to see starters pitching behind starters that you don’t normally see, or we wouldn’t normally do if we weren’t leaving in a couple weeks, where we could space some guys out.”
Tony Gonsolin will be the first of those “piggy-back” starters, Prior said. Blake Snell will start the Cactus League game Tuesday.
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Shohei Ohtani took live batting practice against minor-league right-hander Nicolas Cruz during Sunday morning’s workout. Ohtani saw 32 pitches and put three in play (none over the fence). Roberts said Ohtani is “still on track for the end of next week” to start DHing in Cactus League games.