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Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, top, takes a throw as Boston Red Sox’s Abraham Toro (29) steals second base in the second inning during a baseball game Sunday, July 27, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Jim Davis)
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Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, top, takes a throw as Boston Red Sox’s Abraham Toro (29) steals second base in the second inning during a baseball game Sunday, July 27, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Jim Davis)
BOSTON — For two glorious innings, Dustin May was the pitcher of the Dodgers’ dreams, the one with a spin rate worth waiting for through multiple surgeries. He retired nine batters in a row at one point, striking out five of six in the third and fourth innings.
Then reality returned and he reverted back to the mistake-prone, inconsistent pitcher whose days in the Dodgers’ starting rotation could be over this week.
On back-to-back pitches, he surrendered a triple off the Green Monster and a two-run home run over it, giving up three runs in a blink as the Dodgers lost to the Boston Red Sox, 4-3, on Sunday afternoon, dropping two of three in the weekend series at Fenway Park.
“I feel like it’s been like that for a lot of my outings,” May said. “I feel like I get to a good spot, then I can’t get through one inning. One inning blowup. It’s not a fun feeling but I know the good stuff is in there. It’s just a matter of eliminating the one bad inning.”
Until Sunday’s one bad inning, May was getting the better of World Series hero Walker Buehler in his reunion matchup. Buehler needed 104 pitches to get through 4⅔ innings, walked five and left the game with his ERA a swollen 5.72, still trying to find himself in Boston.
One of those walks came with the bases loaded in the third inning, forcing in the Dodgers’ first run. But they let him off the hook when Andy Pages jumped on Buehler’s next pitch after back-to-back walks and flew out to end the inning.
“You get opportunities, you can’t take advantage of them,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts lamented. “We created opportunities which was good. But we just couldn’t finish off innings today.
“I think it was a pitch that he (Pages) was hunting. And he just didn’t square it up. … You’re more frustrated if he’s going to go out there and chase, and it’s somewhere soft contact out of the zone. But he was hunting up, took a swing on it and just mishit it.”
Like Buehler this year, May could find himself in another uniform if speculation about the Dodgers’ willingness to include him in a trade deadline deal proves prophetic. Or he could simply be the odd man out in a starting rotation soon to be stuffed to overflowing (with Blake Snell coming back next weekend and Shohei Ohtani nearly built up to full-fledged starter strength).
May shook off any discussion of that postgame. But pitching with that hanging over his head, he hit a batter and gave up a run in the first inning but was cruising into the fifth inning.
Michael Conforto has his own reasons to be worrying about his job. The Dodgers’ deadline shopping list includes an upgrade to what he has provided in left field – a low bar to clear. The free agent signee spent the first three months of the season establishing himself as a bust, but he has stepped it up to serviceable in July.
He helped set May up with a lead with a solo home run off Buehler in the fourth and added a pair of doubles in a 3-for-4 game.
“I don’t know if the deadline has come into play with that,” said Conforto, who has hit .276 in July. “I think it’s just knowing who I am and understanding that the first half was not me. I left a lot of hits out there. There was a lot of work to be done. And I just had to put my head down and keep grinding.
“The deadline, I can’t control. That’s out of my control. So I can only control the attitude I show up with and the work I put in. That’s what I’m focused on.”
Back in the lineup on Sunday, Mookie Betts made it a 3-1 lead with a two-out RBI single later in the fourth inning.
It all went away so quickly.
May retired the first batter in the fifth, but he ruined his afternoon with three pitches. He left an 0-and-1 cutter up over the plate and No. 9 hitter, Abraham Toro, pushed it into center field for a single.
May’s first pitch to Anthony was a sinker that didn’t. He lofted a fly ball down the left field line. It collided with the wall. Conforto misplayed the carom and Anthony wound up with a triple. May’s next pitch was a bad sweeper that strayed over the heart of the plate. Bregman swatted it over the wall for a two-run home run.
“Really anywhere but middle-middle,” May said when asked where he was trying to go with the pitch to Bregman. “Just wasn’t executed.”
The Dodgers had multiple chances to answer back.
Miguel Rojas led off the sixth with a double, but never advanced. Conforto doubled with two outs in the seventh and was stranded.
In the eighth, Aroldis Chapman put the tying run in scoring position again with back-to-back walks before he left with an injury. Teoscar Hernandez lined into a double play. Second baseman Ceddane Rafaela dove to beat Hyeseong Kim back to the base – a safe call overturned by replay.
“I thought Teo had a good at-bat right there,” Roberts said. “But you’ve got to know where the defenders are at, line drive, and you’ve got to kind of hold right there. … But Rafaela certainly made a good play.”
And again in the ninth, Conforto drew a two-out walk and pinch-runner Esteury Ruiz stole second to put the tying run in scoring position. But Tommy Edman grounded out, and the Dodgers finished the day 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position.
“I thought we had some good at-bats,” Roberts said. “We had Walker on the ropes a couple times and then couldn’t get the big hit. Even when Chapman went out – first and second base with nobody out, couldn’t score there. So we had some opportunities to cash in today and we just couldn’t get that hit.”
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