Inside the Red Sox’s Rollercoaster Ride with Roman Anthony: Genius or Gambit?

Advertisement

Dustin May is different now, too

May’s second start in a Red Sox uniform since arriving at the trade deadline after nearly a decade in the Dodgers organization was much more encouraging than the first. May lasted just 3 ⅔ innings in his Boston debut against Kansas City on Aug. 6, marking his shortest start of the entire season, but he found redemption on Tuesday with six shutout innings in Houston, his first start of the year allowing zero runs. Though May was consistently eating innings with the Dodgers before the trade, his poor command and inability to coax whiffs or limit hard contact ultimately made him expendable, with Boston instead taking a flier on May to see if he could become more effective in its rotation with the right tweaks. So far, that has meant an uptick in cutters, a pitch that was previously a distant fourth in usage for May behind his sweeper, four-seamer and sinker. It’s just two starts, but cutters have accounted for 24.5% of his total pitches with the Red Sox after he used the pitch just 6.3% of the time with the Dodgers this year.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14