Dustin May has his best start of season as Dodgers sweep White Sox
It’s gotten so bad utility infielders Miguel Rojas and Kiké Hernández have combined to make more appearances on the mound than three pitchers who opened the season in the rotation.
And the Dodgers are just halfway through the season.
That’s created an opportunity for Dustin May, and he’s stepped up to take advantage of it. After missing most of the last two seasons to a series of injuries, May has become a workhorse of the Dodgers staff, notching career highs for starts (16) and innings pitching (89 2/3) while providing stability for a staff that desperately needs it.
And his latest outing Thursday may have been his best, with the right-hander pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in a 6-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox. He scattered four hits and struck out nine, one off his career high, as the Dodgers won their fourth game in a row and their ninth in 10 games..
“I just feel like I’m doing my job,” said May, who took a perfect game into the sixth inning. “I’m just trying to live in a three-foot world. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my career so far. I don’t try to look too far ahead.”
Or behind. Because this is the time of the year when May generally struggles, said catcher Dalton Rushing.
“What makes him going so deep into a game so special, it’s July. And over the years, it’s kind of been a grind through this time of the year for him,” Rushing said. “To see that everything’s still playing at the level that it’s playing is very promising.”
May retired the first 16 batters in order and took a shutout into the eighth inning, only to see Chicago’s Brooks Baldwin end both streaks, singling sharply to right to break up the no-hitter in the sixth and hitting a two-run homer to break up the shutout in the eighth.
By then the Dodgers had all the runs they need, with Freddie Freeman driving in three with a pair of doubles and Michael Conforto and Mookie Betts driving in three more with a pair of homers. For Freeman, it was his first three-RBI game in nearly two months while Betts’ solo homer in the seventh was his second since May 19.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Afterward, Freeman wanted to talk about the lift May has given the team.
“He has electric stuff,” he said. “When you combine electric stuff with that command that he had tonight, that’s what he can do. He was 97 to 99, back-door sliders, cutters in breaking bats. Just electric.”
Sometimes the electricity is shut off, though, because staying consistent has been the biggest challenge for May (5-5). He’s won consecutive starts just once and his ERA has climbed each month. But crucially he’s continued to take the ball every fifth day, which is why May and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are the only Dodger pitchers who have started more than nine times or pitched at least 57 innings.
“My confidence is high,” May said. “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. I’m just going to try and build off this.”
In May’s previous start, he was done after four innings, giving up four runs, walking three and needing 84 pitches to get 12 outs. So Roberts challenged him to focus on his command, control his pitch count and get deeper into the game. It worked Thursday with May needing just 86 pitches to get into the eighth.
“He’s figuring it out,” Roberts said. “He’s probably been our most dependable guy. Taking some workload off the [bull]pen, kind of stabilizing the rotation has been fantastic. I feel good every time he takes the mound.
“The dependability, the consistency of innings that he’s giving us. Every time he goes out there, we have a chance to win.”
Roberts may not have to continue to ride May so hard, however, because the pitching cavalry may soon be arriving. Blake Snell, a two-time Cy Young award winner who hasn’t pitched since April is throwing to hitters again and Tyler Glasnow, who went on the injured list May 31, threw 4 1/3 innings in his third minor league rehab start Thursday.
They can’t come back too soon. The Dodgers are undecided on a starter for Sunday.
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