The first road team that Dustin May saw this season, the Washington Nationals, have lost 12 of their last 13 games, including falling to the Dodgers in Friday night’s series opener.
Taking a close look at May’s season numbers, something jumps out about the proper way to assess what otherwise seems like an unspectacular campaign, with a 4.43 ERA a third of the way through the season.
First and foremost, evaluating May in a vacuum does him an enormous disservice. Few arms have had their development disrupted quite so frequently and aggressively as May, still searching for that first full 162-game campaign.
Furthermore, May has been able to give the Dodgers incredibly valuable length under the context of a rotation that’s simply been taken to the woodshed. May has gone at least five innings in each one of his 13 starts this year, including a full six innings in three of the last five.
This sequence of lengthy starts is all the more impressive when you account for May’s recent command woes, having walked eight batters in his last two performances. Speaking of free passes, those were one of the main issues in his loss at Washington earlier in the year, walking three Nationals and allowing a pair of stolen bases.
After May started the year 1-4, the Los Angeles Dodgers have won four out of their last five games with the sinker baller on the mound, including three against divisional rivals, most recently the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium.
Coming off a narrow win Friday a game they were probably more lucky than good, allowing five runs on three homers, all solo shots, the Dodgers will probably need to do a better job of keeping the ball in the park if they are to hold off this young Nats squad.
Saturday game info
Teams: Dodgers vs. Nationals
Stadium: Dodger Stadium
Start time: 7:10 p.m.
TV: SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of market)
Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)