Homegrown Star Becomes
WORLD SERIES
CHAMPION by Steve Gamel | photo courtesy of Northwest ISD social media
I
t doesn’t feel like 2016 was that long ago. Dustin May was a star pitcher for Justin Northwest High School that year and had a ticket to play collegiately at Texas Tech in his back pocket. The sky, as they say, was the limit.
Fast forward nearly five years, and May never went to Texas Tech.
Instead, he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers — and just last month won himself a World Series ring.
In case you have been living under a
rock, the Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay
Rays in six games to win the 2020 World Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington.
For the Dodgers, it’s the franchise’s first
championship since 1988. For May, it was a chance to pitch alongside household
names like Clayton Kershaw and live out
a dream every baseball-loving boy across the world has fantasized over since first picking up a ball.
May appeared in 12 games this season
(10 starts) and finished with a 3-1 record,
and 2.57 earned run average in 56 innings of work. He pitched three scoreless
innings in two games of the National
League Divisional Series and allowed two earned runs in 4 2/3 innings over three
games in the next round. He then went on to pitch in two games during the World www.35WestMagazine.com
Series, working three total innings and allowing just three runs on five hits. Along the way, he reached some absolutely absurd heat on a few of those pitches. This includes throwing a 101.5 MPH fastball in the World Series. He also threw a twoseamer that reached 100 MPH. “I had known for about six batters that I was going [in],” May said in a postgame interview after Game 5. “I was more so just excited to get in and get my opportunity. [Being in the World Series] just opened my eyes to the amount of focus that guys put into the postseason and the amount of skill everybody has. They come out, and they give out their best every night. It’s been a very exciting series.”
May, who was called up to the majors in August 2019, began his career at Justin
Northwest as a nearly un-hittable 6-6 right-handed phenom. Dustin was ranked 166th out of the top 200 prospects by mlb.com and was chosen in the third round (101st pick) of the 2016 draft. Congrats to Dustin. We can’t wait to see how the rest of your career turns out. DECEMBER 2020 | 35 WEST | 29
