PHOENIX -- After the Dodgers wound up on top of a wild contest on Friday at Chase Field, manager Dave Roberts acknowledged that his team's pitching had to be better on a night that the offense had put them in a good position to win with ease.
The opposite was the case in Saturday's 3-0 loss. Dustin May held the D-backs to a pair of runs across a season-high 6 2/3 innings, but the Dodgers' bats could not keep the momentum going and were shut out for the third time this year.
Being blanked one night after scoring 14 runs and refusing to go away is no easy pill to swallow. Roberts had even said before the game that it felt like "the first time all year that pretty much our entire lineup is clicking."
But on the mound for the D-backs was Corbin Burnes, who had skipped his previously scheduled start due to shoulder inflammation. May held his own while dueling the former Cy Young Award winner, but Burnes was, well …
"Being Corbin Burnes," said Freddie Freeman, whose 14-game hitting streak ended with an 0-for-4 night. "He’s one of the best pitchers in the game for a reason. Cutter was 95-97 [mph], got good depth. Threw the curveball off of it. Changeup was working too. Just had everything going today.”
Burnes tossed seven scoreless innings, while May's 6 2/3 frames represented the first time he had pitched into the seventh since May 12, 2023, one turn before he left a start with elbow pain, the beginning of a nearly two-year absence from big league action.
It was a bounceback effort for May, who had begun the year by holding opponents to five runs (two earned) in his first three starts. But he had a rough go of his next three leading into Saturday, combining to allow 14 runs -- all earned -- across 16 innings.
The D-backs first got on the board when Corbin Carroll tripled to lead off the third inning, then scored on a groundout. Their second run off May was a booming solo shot off the bat of Eugenio Suárez that traveled a Statcast-projected 455 feet in the sixth. Both big hits came on sinkers that caught too much of the plate.
"I thought Dustin was really good," Roberts said. "I thought he was in a good rhythm, he was getting ahead in counts. He put guys away when he needed to. The sweeper was working. He worked to both sides of the plate."
Aside from the mislocated offerings, May felt much closer to where he wants to be.
"I feel like I was working the sinker to both sides of the plate, and I had just two poorly executed sinkers, and they took advantage of it," May said. "It's the big leagues, and that's what they do."
May and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are the only Dodgers starters with multiple starts of at least six innings this season. L.A. leads the Majors with 170 1/3 innings from the bullpen and has sorely needed more length from the rotation.
With Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow sidelined with shoulder injuries, the Dodgers' rotation has not been at full strength. The team is also nearly halfway through a stretch of 19 games in 20 days, and has plugged in bullpen games and spot starters as needed to get through it.
Los Angeles has four starters in the rotation as things stand -- not including Landon Knack, who was recalled to start last Wednesday's series finale in Miami and will likely get one more start during the upcoming homestand. The team is about a week away from getting a key reinforcement, with Clayton Kershaw expected to rejoin the Dodgers after making one more rehab start with Triple-A Oklahoma City on Sunday.
While Kershaw stretched out to six innings in his most recent rehab start, there's no telling exactly how much the Dodgers will get out of him from the jump, especially since he has missed so much time over the past year. As he reacclimates to the big leagues, it will be up to the rest of the rotation to provide some stability.
If May can build on Saturday's performance, that would help put the Dodgers in a great spot.
“He was great," Freeman said. "He was really good. … Just had everything going today. We just couldn’t get him any runs.”