If you only watched 21-year-old Dodgers top right-handed pitching prospect Dustin May face his first two batters in his Triple-A debut with the Oklahoma City Dodgers against the Nashville Sounds (Rangers) on Sunday afternoon at First Tennessee Park in downtown Nashville, you probably would have rolled your eyes and said something like “Oh great.”

After getting the first batter, Sounds left fielder Zack Granite, to ground out to OKC shortstop Gavin Lux on two pitches, and throwing a first-pitch strike to Sounds shortstop Eli White, May hit White with a 97-mph fastball.

What’s the big deal, you ask? You’re going to love this one.

Early Sunday morning, ThinkBlue LA learned from a trusted source that Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman made the trip to Nashville to watch his top pitching prospect and Dodgers 2016 third-round draft pick (out of Northwest High School in Justin, TX) make his Triple-A debut.

Awkward indeed … but not for long. Even though White would eventually come around to score, May was brilliant in his Triple-A debut.

In his 5.0 innings of work, the 6′-6″ / 180-pound Justin, TX native allowed only two runs (one earned) on four hits (three singles and one double), while walking two, striking out three, and hitting two batters. He made 91 total pitches, of which 54 were strikes. The Triple-A Dodgers would go on to beat the Sounds soundly by a score of 13-6, to give May his first win in an OKC Dodgers uniform and a 1.80 ERA.

The burning question, of course, is why was Friedman at the game while his major league Dodgers were pounding the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field?

The simple answer is that he just wanted to see his fourth-ranked overall prospect in his Triple-A debut, perhaps with the notion that May could be a September call-up this season.

The not-so-simple answer, one that gives die-hard Dodger fans reason to worry, is that with the July 31 trade deadline exactly one month away, might Friedman have been there to assess whether or not he wants to hold onto May, or include him in a trade package to acquire a much-needed top-tier reliever?

Keep in mind that on June 22, May allowed only two hits while walking none and striking out 14 Amarillo Sod Poodles (Padres) batters while with the Dodgers Double-A affiliate Tulsa Drillers. That remarkable outing not only earned May Texas League Pitcher of the Week honors, but it was undoubtedly the reason why he was promoted to Triple-A OKC this past Thursday.

Although the mere though of trading away the guy who has been called ‘The right-handed Clayton Kershaw‘ and ‘The Next Walker Buehler‘ makes even the strongest Dodger fans weak in the knees, it’s hard not to hear those ever-annoying words of MLB Network Radio’s Casey Stern resonating in your head:

“Prospects are cool, parades are cooler.”

That being said, if Friedman is indeed even remotely entertaining the idea of trading away Dustin May, it could very well rival the trade made by former Dodgers general manager Fred Claire on November 19, 1993 that no Dodger fan will ever forget. That was the day that Claire sent eventual Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez to the Montreal Expos in exchange for weak-hitting second baseman Delino DeShields, who finished his five-year MLB career with a .245 batting average.

Play Ball!

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