Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

The freak salad accident that derailed Dustin May’s 2024 season

"It wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024"

Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

Pitchers and injuries have become an unfortunate trend in Major League Baseball (MLB) in recent years. Usually, it’s Tommy John surgery, flexor tendon issues, or shoulder troubles. But in Dustin May’s case, it was something far more bizarre, life-threatening, terrifying, and, of all things, salad-related.

The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher revealed that a simple bite of salad was responsible for his season-ending esophagus surgery last July. Dustin May had already undergone Tommy John surgery and a flexor tendon repair during the 2023 season and was close to rejoining the Dodgers for their eventual World Series-winning run before a freak accident forced him into emergency surgery.

How did a salad lead to emergency surgery for Dustin May?

Dustin May described the moment as completely unexpected. After taking a bite of salad, he felt a piece of lettuce get lodged in his throat and attempted to wash it down with water. Instead, he experienced a searing, unbearable pain in his throat and stomach for about 15 minutes. When the pain finally subsided, he assumed it had passed and went home. Thankfully, his wife insisted that he visit the emergency room.

What seemed like a minor incident turned out to be a severe and rare case of food impaction. Doctors determined that the lettuce had perforated his esophagus, requiring an immediate and serious abdominal surgery to repair the damage.

Dustin May faced live batters today for the first time since 2023.

He also recently opened up on his esophagus tear to the @latimessports, referring to it as a life-altering event.

May has a shot at becoming the Dodgers number 5 starter after all this adversity 🙏 pic.twitter.com/tmQEECvKWj
— Dodgers Nation (@DodgersNation) February 18, 2025

“It was definitely a life-altering event. It was definitely very serious. It’s not a very common surgery. It was definitely an emergency. I probably wouldn’t have made it through the night if I didn’t have it,” May shared.

The entire ordeal was as frustrating as it was shocking. “You can’t plan for it. You can’t try to prevent it. It just happened. It wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024,” he added.

Can Dustin May break into the Dodgers’ rotation?

Once one of the Dodgers’ most promising pitching prospects, Dustin May now faces an uphill battle to secure a spot in the team’s already elite rotation. With Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki in the mix, competition will be fierce.

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Cleared for full-strength training in January, May is eager to prove himself. The 27-year-old has only made 46 career appearances since debuting in 2019, with 2020 being the only season in which he started at least 10 games. Despite the injury setbacks, he holds a solid 12-9 record with a 3.10 ERA.

“If I’m healthy, I feel like I have a spot on this rotation. I just have to go out and prove that,” May stated confidently.

Dustin May

Injury

Los Angeles Dodgers

Mohsin Baldiwala

mlb

Mohsin Baldiwala is a Master’s student in Journalism and freelance content producer who got hooked on baseball through Seinfeld’s hapless George Costanza. The same reason why he’s a Yankees fan. He writes about sports because he believes it can offer a brief escape from the world’s chaos. Even if that means enduring the heartbreak of the 2024 World Series.