- Share via
Dustin May closed his eyes, took a breath and held his head toward the heavens.
For a brief moment, shortly before he began warming up for the first inning Tuesday night, the Dodgers pitcher let himself absorb the significance of his milestone moment — reflecting one last time on the 685-day journey that brought him there.
“There was definitely a lot of emotions that got let out,” May said. “It was just super, super great to be back out there.”
Not since May 17, 2023 had May stood atop the Dodger Stadium mound. That day he suffered an elbow injury that led to a flexor tendon surgery and Tommy John revision, the second major arm procedure of his young MLB career.
During the 22 months that followed, the hard-throwing right-hander endured a rehab process of uniquely difficult circumstances, getting close to a return midway through last season before a freak accident at dinner last July forced him into emergency, and season-ending, surgery to repair a frightening esophagus tear.
Dodgers pitcher Dustin May talks about how he sustained a serious tear in his esophagus that derailed his hopes of returning to the mound last season.
As May finally worked his way back to full strength this spring, the experience gave the 27-year-old renewed perspective. He no longer was a promising young prospect. He was unable to contribute to last season’s World Series championship.
But after so much time away, and such a scary medical saga, he simply was grateful to once again be back on the rubber — making his first start in almost two years in the Dodgers’ 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves.
“Even if it would have went bad, I still would have been having a good time,” May said afterward. “It literally meant the world to me just to be back out on the mound.”
Instead, May was clinical for five innings, giving up just one unearned run to help the Dodgers — who also got a go-ahead, two-run home run from Mookie Betts in the sixth inning off reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale — extend their perfect start to a Los Angeles franchise record of 7-0.
May gave up just one hit, struck out six batters and worked around three walks to escape a couple of jams. Most notably he also displayed a calm demeanor, replacing his old fiery and self-critical disposition with increased poise and, in the view of Dodgers coaches, newfound maturity.
Tyler Glasnow, pitching for the first time since sustaining an elbow injury last season, shuts down Atlanta in a 6-1 victory for the undefeated Dodgers.
“Just knowing that everything that I’ve been through in the last two years, it was just a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, and it was like I could just kind of relax,” May said. “Being able to stay a little bit more levelheaded throughout life in general has been one of my biggest things in the last six months. Just trying to live in the moment. [Knowing] everything is going to be OK no matter what happens.”
May first began to change 10 months ago — when, just weeks away from a big-league return in July, he tore his esophagus on a bite of a salad that got lodged in his throat.
That night he went to the hospital and was rushed into surgery. Doctors told him that without medical intervention, “I probably wouldn’t have made it through the night.”
“I felt like I was really close. And then after the esophagus thing happened, it was just like a total reset,” May added. “Like there’s nothing I can even do at the moment. … I was just trying to get healthy, get home and be able to see the next morning.”
The Dodgers were on a road trip to Philadelphia and Detroit when May went through his medical scare. And as word started spreading about what happened, the team almost couldn’t believe the gravity of the situation.
“We have a message [chat] with medical updates, and got a thing saying, ‘Hey, he had a choking incident. He choked on some salad,’” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “Everybody’s like, ‘Huh? OK, that doesn’t sound great.’ But then we learned, oh no, it was an emergency surgery. We didn’t hear about that for a couple days.”
Echoed Betts: “We didn’t understand what that really meant. It was hard to believe. Like one of those stories that you just make up, but it was actually true.”
When the Dodgers next saw May during a series in Phoenix a couple of months later, the pitcher was back on his feet but nowhere near playing shape. Already lanky, he looked concerningly skinny after losing roughly 40 pounds from the liquid-only diet he was required to follow in the wake of his surgery. When coaches asked about the scar from his procedure, he lifted his shirt to show a long, vertical incision running the length of his chest.
“It almost looked like an open-heart-type surgery,” Prior said of the scar. “So to see where he’s at now, it’s pretty incredible.”
Despite not returning to full strength until around Jan. 1, May showed up to spring training displaying surprisingly impressive form. From the outset of camp he emerged as a front-runner for the No. 5 spot in the rotation. And as he kept ramping up over the preseason, the team noticed his altered approach to the game.
“To watch him mature and grow up in his own way, he’s just got a nice pro presence around him right now,” assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness said. “As scary as it was, I think it put some things in perspective for him.”
For example, rather than throwing at “full max effort all the time” to overpower hitters with upper-90s heat, McGuiness said, May found increased consistency by “pitching efficiently at a good effort level, without blowing it out every single throw.”
“He can tap into that bigger velo when he needs it,” McGuiness added. “But [without it], he can actually kind of move the ball around, command it a little better.”
May still walked three batters Tuesday and threw only 46 strikes in 81 pitches. But he was able to repeatedly execute in the most crucial situations, like when he stranded two runners in the second inning after Betts’ throwing error at shortstop led to an unearned run, or when May got ahead of Nick Allen with two strikes in the fifth to set up his sweeper for an inning-ending double play.
“It was good to see [myself] actually getting big league hitters out,” May said. “That was the best I’ve felt mechanical-wise and stuff-wise [in a long time] tonight.”
The other big change was May’s in-game emotional state. Instead of cursing and screaming every time his adrenaline surged, the sixth-year big leaguer kept a cooler head. After striking out the side in the first, he simply skipped his way back to the dugout. In moments of frustration he did little more than crane his neck.
“He’s out there, certainly, being grateful that he has an opportunity to pitch and be healthy,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s not as hard on himself as I recall in years past. He just kind of gets to the next pitch a lot better.”
It was all reflective of the long road May traveled to get back to this stage, and the adversity-hardened mindset he was forced to evolve along the way.
“I was looking for the positive side of things, even though there wasn’t really a very bright light at the end of the tunnel,” May said. “I had to scratch and claw my way out and find my way back.”
