One hitter to late, one CF to short

Phil Gurnee ♦ August 3, 2019 ♦ 2 Comments

Dustin May put up the worst debut game score (40) at Dodger Stadium by a LAD in history last night but it was hard to fault him for it. The Dodgers didn’t exactly back him with their A lineup with Negron playing his first game in CF at Dodger Stadium and Tyler White getting the nod at 1st base. DJ Peters and Edwin Rios both in AAA could have given him better defense that what he got last night from those two.

May didn’t cruise through five innings, but he hadn’t given up any earned runs through those five innings and was leading 2 – 1.  Two singles later it was surprising that he was still pitching. Another single later I don’t think anyone at Dodger stadium expected him to face the left hand hitting Naylor with two on and two in the 6th after having thrown 90 pitches except Rich Honeycut and Dave Roberts. The Dodgers only had a right-hander warming up when clearly the lineup card showed a left-handed hitter in a dangerous spot. May had already thrown over 90 pitches in his debut and taking him out with Naylor up would have made the most sense but for whatever reason Dave Roberts decided to let the kid try to get out of his jam. I guess with a 16 game lead you can try things you normally wouldn’t.

It didn’t work, as Naylor hit a rocket that Negron tried to run down but as he slammed into the fence, Negron was unable to make the circus catch. Negron who is normally an infielder was pressed into CF because “surprise” AJ Pollock was hurting. I doubt Pollock even comes to close to making that catch unless he was playing Naylor in a completely different way than Negron did. The hit was the ballgame, as the Dodger offense took the night off other than a booming two-run home run by Cody Bellinger.

In the end, Dustin May has the worst game score for a LAD debut but for five innings he gave up zero runs, and at times showed why he is the Dodgers top pitching prospect. With Ryu and Stripling down, for the time being, Dodger fans will get to see Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May a few more times.

Player                     Date  Tm Opp  Rslt  IP  H ER BB SO GSc
Dustin May           2019-08-02 LAD SDP L 2-5 5.2  9  3  0  3  40
Terry Wells          1990-07-03 LAD CHC W 7-6 6.0  8  4  1  6  41
Hyun-Jin Ryu         2013-04-02 LAD SFG L 0-3 6.1 10  1  0  5  50
Sandy Vance          1970-04-26 LAD NYM L 1-3 6.0  4  3  1  0  51
Dennys Reyes         1997-07-13 LAD SFG W 9-3 6.0  4  3  4  6  54
Jim Neidlinger       1990-08-01 LAD SFG L 1-2 6.0  7  1  1  3  56
Jose De Leon         2016-09-04 LAD SDP W 7-4 6.0  5  3  0  9  57
Stephen Fife         2012-07-17 LAD PHI L 2-3 6.0  4  1  3  1  58
Don Sutton           1966-04-14 LAD HOU L 2-4 7.0  7  2  1  7  59
Clayton Kershaw      2008-05-25 LAD STL W 4-3 6.0  5  2  1  7  60
Doyle Alexander   1971-06-26(2) LAD SDP W 4-3 8.0  7  2  0  3  63
Matt Magill          2013-04-27 LAD MIL L 4-6 6.2  4  2  2  7  63
Rick Sutcliffe       1976-09-29 LAD HOU W 1-0 5.0  2  0  1  3  65
Shawn Hillegas       1987-08-09 LAD ATL W 5-2 8.2  7  2  3  6  65
Ramon Martinez       1988-08-13 LAD SFG W 2-1 7.2  4  1  4  5  68
Kazuhisa Ishii       2002-04-06 LAD COL W 9-2 5.2  2  0  3 10  72
Nick Willhite     1963-06-16(2) LAD CHC W 2-0 9.0  5  0  1  6  82
Pedro Astacio     1992-07-03(2) LAD PHI W 2-0 9.0  3  0  4 10  87

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Generated 8/3/2019.