ATLANTA -- Dodgers starting pitcher Dustin May did not fool Austin Riley with his sweeper on Sunday night.
Riley, Atlanta’s third baseman, hit a pair of two-run home runs off two 85-mph sweepers from May as the Braves avoided a sweep in the three-game series and halted Los Angeles' seven-game win streak with a 4-3 win in the finale at Truist Park.
"It’s pretty frustrating, giving up two homers to him on the same pitch,” May said. “That’s not really how I drew it up. I thought the execution was a little better tonight except for those [sweepers]. The guys tried to battle back.”
May said the sweepers caught a little bit too much of the plate.
"Ideally [I wanted] the first [sweeper] more off the plate and definitely not up,” May said. “The second one was OK, it just had too much plate.”
May allowed one hit over five innings in the Dodgers' 3-1 win over the Braves in Los Angeles on April 1. In that game, Riley went 0-for-2 with a strikeout against May. The third strike of the strikeout came against May’s sweeper.
"That’s a really good pitch,” Riley said. “He’s made me look silly on it a couple of times. But I just got him a little closer and was able to stay through the big part of the field.”
All things considered, though, May held the rest of the Braves’ lineup at bay, going 5 2/3 innings and allowing five hits and no other runs than the ones supplied by Riley. May also struck out six and walked two in his sixth start of the season.
"[With the rest of the order, I had] a little better execution on stuff,” May said. “I was able to hit the ball on the inner half and outer half.”
May settled in after a rocky first half and gave the Dodgers -- a team in the middle of a stretch of 10 games in 10 days -- some length.
"I thought for him to get into the sixth inning was certainly helpful for [Monday] and the coming days,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It was just a couple [sweepers] that didn’t get glove side. We also made some really nice plays too. For Dustin to not run from it, to keep going, was big.”
Riley homered in the first and third innings to give the Braves a 4-0 lead, but the Dodgers scored three runs in response. Max Muncy’s RBI double put Los Angeles on the board. He later drove in Mookie Betts from third with a groundout. Miguel Rojas hit a pinch-hit solo home run in the top of the seventh, but Atlanta’s bullpen held serve.
"We’re never out of it,” May said. “I definitely thought we were [going to] come back and I definitely thought we had a shot. We just didn’t finish.”
Rojas said May gave the Dodgers a chance to come back and win.
"We put ourselves in a position to get back in that game,” Rojas said. “I think May did an amazing job keeping us in that game and gave us a couple innings.”
May has gone at least five innings in all six of his starts this season and he’s tallied 28 strikeouts, 14 walks and 16 earned runs in 33 innings, with a 4.36 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP.
"[There were] ups and downs,” May said of his first month of the season. “There were a couple of good moments and a couple of really bad ones. I definitely need to be more consistent.”
May missed all of 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery the previous year and underwent surgery in '24 to repair an esophageal tear.
"I think the first month, him being back, I couldn’t be more pleased,” Roberts said. “There’s a lot more in there. As far as the first month, where he’s at, he’s doing great. It’s kind of [about] getting that first-pitch strike and being able to put hitters away when you have count leverage, those are the little things that I think he’s [going to] get.”