LOS ANGELES — Dustin May’s career has always been about potential. The electric right arm. The evil movement and spins in every offering he makes. The kind of fire that bubbled from him at every turn, the red curls coming out of his hat.
The on-field dominance came in teasing doses. Wednesday should be a continuation of a hot streak: In his first eight starts, he’s posted a 2.68 ERA and looks like one of the best starters in the sport.
Instead, May afternoon lasted 16 pitches in a 7-3 win over the Twins. No pitch has topped 95.8 mph, an alarming sight from a right-hander known for his ridiculous speed and movement. Following a quick bench discussion with manager Dave Roberts and pitching coach Mark Prior after the top of the first, May grabbed his gear and disappeared down the tunnel to the home clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. His elbow is shaking again.
The 25-year-old is coming into his own, just 14 starts removed from the Tommy John surgery that threatened his ascension when it was just beginning. Now, he will miss at least a month and likely more, after early tests indicated May suffered a flexor pronator strain, Roberts said.
May went through several levels of pain throughout his rehab, a league source said The Athletic, but thought it was a normal part of her recovery from surgery. Tests on Wednesday showed a Grade 1 strain of the flexor tendon, which did not heal properly during his rehab, leading to some discomfort.
“(It’s) not great right now,” said Roberts, whose May has already left the ballpark to get an MRI.
Those tests showed the injury did not appear to affect his surgically-reconstructed ulnar collateral ligament, league sources said. The Athletic. May will receive a platelet-rich plasma injection into the tendon to promote healing in the area in hopes of avoiding season-ending surgery. If the injection works well, the source said, the hope is May could be back in four to six weeks.
The right-hander blossomed this spring, taking advantage of his first normal offseason in years to look like a bonafide front-of-the-rotation starter. He changed his arsenal by changing the shape of some of his breaking pitches and changing his pitch usage, and finding remarkable results. May looks like the pitcher he was promised when he became a fireballing pitching prospect. That development took a massive detour Wednesday afternoon, descending the dugout steps with him.
“Right now Dustin feels like, when he takes the mound, he’s the best guy out there and he’s going to go out there and dominate,” Roberts said Wednesday morning, just hours before May got off to his bad start.
May didn’t feel anything on any particular pitch, Roberts said, and he hasn’t felt anything other than the typical pain in his work between starts since entering the seventh inning in a win over the Padres on Friday at Dodger Stadium.
It didn’t lessen the anxiety of watching a May afternoon end so suddenly. He became the second Dodgers starter in less than a week to leave the start after one inning with an injury after Noah Syndergaard’s bloody finger cut short his start in Milwaukee. Syndergaard lasted just four innings Monday as the Dodgers’ starters combined to throw nine innings in three games against the Twins.
Just getting through Wednesday was a task that required calling up 31-year-old right-hander Dylan Covey to make his first appearance in the major leagues in three seasons after spending the last few years in the CPBL in Taiwan. .
“A few years ago, I never thought I’d be back in this situation,” said Covey, a former White Sox Rule 5 draft pick whose last taste of the majors came in eight outings in a pandemic-shortened season for to the Red Sox.
The Southern California native pitched four innings (allowing two earned runs) to rescue a beleaguered Dodgers bullpen that had to cover 21 of 30 innings in the series after Monday’s game went into extra innings. The Dodgers are in the midst of a 13-game stretch in 13 days.
More reinforcements will be needed soon for a rotation that is suddenly feeling strained in Mayo’s absence. Gavin Stone is the most likely option to take May’s turn in the rotation in the interim; the prospect made his big-league debut earlier this month. Stone will be in his normal rotation if he takes the next start in May, coming off a Triple-A outing in which he struck out 10.
The rest of the depth remains uncertain whether May will miss more time. Michael Grove (groin) and Ryan Pepiot (oblique) have started facing hitters in their rehabilitation. Both pitchers will require a minor-league rehab assignment before they can reasonably be expected to continue the stretch run. The continued health of Syndergaard, who made it through his Monday start without further issues from his finger, suddenly became paramount.
But none of those starters have shown they have the impact to change the rotation that May continues to flash.
“Obviously, he’s a big part of this year,” Roberts said of Mayo. “And he still can. But right now, to have this speed bump again, I know he’s disappointed.”
(Dustin May photo: Gary A. Vasquez / USA Today)
