Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dustin May was on his way back from injury, hoping to join the team to help them win a World Series in July 2024.
May, 27, was rehabbing from a flexor tendon and Tommy John revision surgery, with a chance to return late in the season.
On the night of July 10, everything changed.
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Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dustin May throws during a spring training workout at Camelback Ranch. (Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images)
While May was still rehabbing at the Dodgers’ Camelback Ranch facility, he ordered a salad for dinner.
May took one bite, and felt lettuce stuck in his throat. He attempted to wash it down with some water, but knew something was wrong.
For 15 minutes it was “mega-painful,” May said via the LA Times, talking about the incident publicly for the first time last week. The pain was in his throat and stomach.
It turns out May had unknowingly suffered a serious tear in his esophagus. He later learned that the lettuce lodged in his throat perforated his esophagus, something that is very uncommon.
Once the pain wore off, May thought he would be fine.
“I’m not a big panicker,” he said. “It kind of chilled out. So I was like, ‘I’m fine. I don’t need to do anything.’”
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Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Dustin May warms up during spring training. (Rick Scuteri-USA Today Sports)
Millie, May’s wife, wasn’t of the same thinking as Dustin.
“No,” May recalled her saying. “We’re going to the ER to get it checked out.”
After a CT scan revealed the significance of the tear in May’s esophagus, doctors immediately rushed him into surgery.
“It was extremely frustrating. You can’t plan for it. You can’t try to prevent it. It just happened,” May said.
“It wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024.”
The surgery, which May described as “basically a full abdominal surgery,” left the pitcher with a long scar from his lower chest to his stomach.
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Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dustin May throws during spring training at Camelback Ranch. (Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images)
May went from being a piece of the Dodgers pitching staff down the stretch, to realizing just how fragile life is.
“It just kind of gives me a different viewpoint on a lot of things in life. Just seeing how something so non-baseball-related can just be like – it can be gone in a second. And the stuff it put my wife through, it definitely gave me (a feeling) of, ‘Wow, stuff can change like that.’ It was definitely very scary,” May said.
“It was definitely a life-altering event. It was definitely very serious. It’s not a very common surgery. It was definitely an emergency.”
May’s Tommy John procedure was the second time he had undergone the repair of his elbow, as he underwent the surgery in 2021.
May has pitched 191.2 innings across five seasons in the big leagues. He has been effective when healthy, as he has a 3.10 ERA with 174 strikeouts when on the mound for the Dodgers.
The Dodgers’ rotation is littered with aces, making it no guarantee that May is in the starting rotation despite being healthy again.
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Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers, from left, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and Joe Kelly in the bullpen during spring training at Camelback Ranch. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA Today Sports)
Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw are among those penciled into the starting rotation.
Regardless, May is excited about finally being healthy and able to compete again.
“I’m definitely excited and definitely have a deeper appreciation for the game.”
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