Dodgers Cycling Through Starting Pitchers, Remain On Top In NL West

Pitching staff attrition is nothing new, and it didn’t stand in the way of the last two World Series champions, the 2023 Texas Rangers and 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers while they were making their respective runs. The Rangers did have five starting pitchers accumulate 141 2/3 or more innings during the regular season, only to see all but postseason hero Nathan Eovaldi disappear in October. Last year’s Dodgers only had two starters – Gavin Stone and Tyler Glasnow – exceed the lowly total of 90 innings pitched during the regular season.

For both clubs, it was all hands on deck during the postseason to push them over the finish line. Reliever Josh Sborz, who had a poor 5.50 ERA in the 2023 regular season, was nails over 12 high leverage postseason innings. Last year’s Dodgers got some key postseason innings from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who improved with each postseason round.

Most fans expected this year’s Dodgers, who made their annual expensive foray into the deep end of the free agent market to bring aboard the likes of Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, to run away and hide in the NL West. It hasn’t exactly worked that way, though after Sunday’s games they did sit at 39-27, in 1st place, a game ahead of both the Padres and Giants.

It hasn’t been easy, to say the least. Some of their earliest regular season problems were documented here. Their litany of injuries on the pitching side, particularly to the starting rotation, has mushroomed to cartoonish levels. 14, count ‘em 14, pitchers currently sit on the injured list, with Glasnow, Snell, Sasaki and Stone among them. Shohei Ohtani is there as well, in the late stages of Tommy John surgery rehab that could be completed just after the All Star break. Ditto Tony Gonsolin, who was recently shut down last week with right elbow discomfort. It’s unknown how long he will be sidelined.

Their current rotation, after the demotion of Landon Knack, has two stable members in righties Yamamoto and Dustin May, as well as a pair of lefties at very distinctly different points in their respective careers, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Wrobleski. May, who pitched last night against the Padres, has already reached a career high in innings pitched, and at age 27, has emerged as a crucially important member of the staff.

His injury history is lengthy – he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021, flexor tendon surgery in 2023, and then missed all of 2024 with a torn esophagus. He’s right on the fringes of the inning-per-game level required to qualify for the ERA title, behind only Yamamoto in workload among all Dodger starters.

Now May hasn’t been great this year, mind you, but his availability and reliability has been huge for the club. His average four-seam fastball velocity is down quite a bit from pre-injury levels, at 95.1 mph, but the pitch has played up a bit while its usage is way down. He’s compensated by throwing a ton of sliders, with just over a 40% usage rate.

Both his K (24.2%) and BB (8.5%) rates are in the league average range, so his contact management performance is key to determining how far above or below average his overall performance rates. His batted ball profile is fairly neutral – a somewhat above average grounder rate and below average liner rate is offset by a well below average pop up rate. (His fly ball rate is in the average range – he gets very few pop ups per fly ball compared to most pitchers.) His batted ball authority profile isn’t very good, either. His 90.3 mph average exit speed allowed is over a standard deviation higher than league average. At least that deficiency is mostly due to a shortfall in the least impactful area, grounders, where his 88.5 mph average exit speed allowed is over a full standard deviation worse than league average.

All told, May has posted a subpar 128 Adjusted Contact Score this season. His 108 “Tru” ERA- (my batted ball-based proxy for ERA- and FIP-) might be below average, but is right in the ballpark with his 104 and 100 marks in those more mainstream metrics. (Stats do not include Monday night’s start.)

So May is not exhibiting any sort of excellence this season. But his availability has been huge. If he can claw back some of his lost velocity and continue to take a representative turn every fifth day, he is delivering solid value to his club. I would caution that with his injury history and his current heavy slider usage, that he is a riskier starter health-wise than most. But even if doesn’t make it all the way to the finish line this season, he has already provided the Dodgers a valuable service, keeping the trains running on time while waiting for the return of some combination of Ohtani, Snell, Sasaki and Glasnow to the rotation.