LOS ANGELES — Tommy John surgery is so common, with hundreds of pitchers from high school to the big leagues undergoing the elbow ligament replacement procedure every year, and its success rate (80% to 90%) so high that it almost seems routine.
It is anything but, the grueling 16-month rehabilitation process, with its endless hours of strength and range-of-motion exercises, the painful breaking up of scar tissue and the months-long throwing progression, accompanied by an equally challenging mental component.
“The doctors have done a great job with the surgery, and guys are coming back and performing, but as a player, you feel isolated and ostracized, like you’re not a part of the team,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
“I think we do as good a job as anybody trying to keep guys feeling valued and relevant, getting them in town with us when we can, but it’s a tough road mentally.”
Dustin May reached the end of that rehab road — and the beginning of what the Los Angeles Dodgers hope is a pothole-free path to the postseason — on Saturday night when the hard-throwing right-hander returned from Tommy John surgery to make his first big league start in 151/2 months.
An encouraging first step it was, May surviving a rocky 26-pitch first to blank the Miami Marlins on one hit and strike out nine in five scoreless innings of a 7-0 victory before a crowd of 51,813 at Dodger Stadium.
Will Smith hit a three-run homer in the first and Justin Turner added a three-run shot in the third to provide a huge early cushion for May, who retired the final 13 batters he faced to help the Dodgers improve their major league-best record to 83-36, including a 38-8 mark since June 29.
Roberts said he expected May to take the mound with “some extra adrenaline and emotion,” and that was evident when May gave up a leadoff single to Joey Wendle and, after two strikeouts, walked JJ Bleday and Brian Anderson on four pitches each to load the bases.
But May struck out Nick Fortes with a nasty 86-mph slider in the dirt to end the inning, and off he went, retiring the side in order in each the next four innings on only 45 pitches.
May’s stuff looked as crisp as it did pre-surgery, his two-seam sinking fastball averaging 97.4 mph and topping out at 98.8 mph, his four-seamer averaging 98.2 mph and topping out at 99.2 mph, and his tight-spinning sliders breaking sharply at an average of 85.6 mph.
He struck out the side — Bleday on an 87-mph changeup, Anderson on a 97-mph sinker and Fortes on an 85-mph slider — in the fourth. Among his 71 pitches, 13 were swinging strikes and 16 were called strikes.
May made five minor league rehab starts for triple-A Oklahoma City, but Saturday marked his first big league appearance since May 1, 2021, when he winced in pain after feeling a shooting sensation down his arm on his 27th pitch of a game at Milwaukee’s American Family Field.
May immediately summoned Roberts and an athletic trainer to the mound, and after a brief discussion, he headed to the clubhouse. Two weeks later, May, who was 1-1 with a 2.74 ERA in five games and had struck out 35 in 23 innings, was on an operating table.
“I was very sad for him,” Roberts said. “You talk about the talent, where we were at, what he potentially could have done for us going forward … it was exciting. He was throwing the heck out of the baseball, and then for it to go down like that, it was a gut punch for all of us.”
May said his recovery process was “very smooth” and that he didn’t baby his arm once he returned to game action in July, refusing to allow himself to “worry about setbacks” and vowing not to “hold anything back.”
That was apparent Saturday night, as he overwhelmed a weak-hitting Miami Marlins team and easily outpitched his counterpart, Bryan Hoeing, who made his major league debut in place of Braxton Garrett, who was scratched because of a rib-cage strain a few hours before the game.
It did not go well for Hoeing, a 25-year-old right-hander. One-out singles by Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman and Smith’s three-run homer into the left-field bullpen gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead in the first.
Freeman followed singles by Mookie Betts and Trea Turner with an RBI single in the third for a 4-0 lead. Two batters later, Justin Turner crushed a towering three-run homer to left to make it 7-0.
—Danny Duffy not done
Reports of Danny Duffy’s demise were apparently premature. The veteran left-hander, recovering from a flexor tendon strain, felt some discomfort while facing hitters earlier this month, and Roberts said Tuesday that it was “pretty unlikely” that Duffy would be an option this season.
But Duffy’s fastball touched 93 mph in a one-inning simulated game in Arizona on Saturday. “There was just some soreness,” Roberts said. “It was not my intention (to insinuate) that he was done for the year. I know Danny’s expectation is to help us at some point.”
