Los Angeles Dodgers starter Dustin May, one of the game’s most brilliant youthful pitchers, will go through season-finishing Tommy John medical procedure to fix a harmed ulnar security tendon, the group declared on Monday.
The surgery is booked for Tuesday in L.A. also, will be performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache. The recovery schedule generally falls somewhere close to 12 and 16 months, a prognosis that could have May back for the stretch run of the 2022 season. May, 23, isn’t booked to arrive at free organization until after the 2026 season.
“I feel for him, most important,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “For our ballclub, it’s a big blow. But we have a lot of talented players and we just have to find a way to fill that void.”
The Dodgers started the season with a plenitude of top notch beginning pitching however are as of now down to four solid starters – Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Trevor Bauer and Julio Urias. David Price, who was working out of a warm up area job, is nursing a hamstring injury that will keep him out four to about a month and a half. Also, Tony Gonsolin is as yet on the harmed list, however he has started the way toward being worked back up as a beginning pitcher.
Gonsolin could return before the finish of May, so, all things considered he would basically take May’s spot. Cost is required to return as a reliever. Meanwhile, the Dodgers – constrained into a split doubleheader on Tuesday after Monday’s down from Wrigley Field was deferred because of severe climate – might use a grouping of relievers each time a fifth starter is required.
Another alternative could be to begin Bauer at regular intervals, instead of the conventional five. Bauer has since a long time ago invited the chance to work under that plan, expressing that his body has demonstrated equipped for staying at an ideal level with one less day away from work between begins.
“We’ve thought about it, yeah,” said Roberts, who has also previously dismissed the possibility of utilizing top prospect Josiah Gray as a spot starter. “There’s a scenario that it could happen. I think we do a good job of entertaining certain things, and certainly Trevor has talked about that.”
May has a 2.93 ERA with 111 strikeouts and 27 strolls in 113 2/3 normal season innings in the course of recent years, wowing fans and evaluators with his combination of triple-digit sinkers and obliterating cutters. May won the fifth spot of the Dodgers’ revolution emerging from spring preparing and seemed to reach one more level in his advancement in 2021, with a 2.74 ERA through five beginnings.
He left his Saturday start against the Milwaukee Brewers with torment in his correct arm and went through a MRI while the group was in Chicago on Monday morning, which uncovered a UCL tear sufficiently huge to require a medical procedure.
Roberts said there were no notice signs paving the way to that injury. May’s pregame warm-ups worked out positively, as did his between-begins work days sooner. Nine pitches prior to leaving, May tossed a fastball 99.7 mph. However, his last one came in at 94.3 mph, his slowest fastball the entire season. May perceptibly flinched and motioned to the burrow.
It’ll be quite a while before he tosses another pitch.
Roberts addressed May before on Monday and said he was “emotionally obviously down.”
“When you hear kind of the ultimate decision, outcome, as far as having to have surgery, it’s obviously very disappointing. He’s handling it like a pro, wants to figure out what’s the next step after surgery, and kind of attack it that way. But, yeah, I think disappointed, certainly.”
