to return following Tommy John surgery and his assessment might be a little harsh, May shook off the sign.

“No excuses,” he said. “I should have been able to throw strikes.”

May acknowledged that “my stuff was there” and pinned the blame for his inconsistent command on “a couple mechanical cues” that had gotten away from him during his rehab.

“I wasn’t getting my body in the right positions and I was just flinging the ball instead of being able to throw it where I wanted to,” he said.

“I was really getting stuck on my back side, on my back leg and it was kind of creating a jump forward and my arm was late. Now we kind of cleaned it back up to where I was pre-surgery so it’s more of a flow down the mound instead of a drop-sit-jump.”

Adjustments in his offseason conditioning program to focus on more “lateral movement, explosive stuff” have addressed that. It’s a long way from where he was a year ago when he wasn’t able to throw off a mound until the final week of spring training.

Now the question is how much May will be allowed to throw this season. The Tommy John surgery and rehab have blown a hole in the 25-year-old’s development process. May made his major-league debut in 2019 but hasn’t thrown more than 56 innings in a season since then. The Dodgers will likely manage his workload carefully this season.

“I don’t think there’s any hard numbers, even close to that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I think that keeping that somewhere front of mind, knowing the recency of Dustin, will help us manage him. It’s kind of a week-to-week, month-to-month kind of thing and we’ll re-assess. I’m sure we’ll keep changing depending on how he feels.

“Obviously, it’s going to be different for him versus a guy that was healthy all last year. We’re definitely going to be mindful of it. With Dustin, he looks strong, strong of mind as well. He’s a great competitor. So he’s always going to want more. I don’t know kind of right now, the limitations, but certainly being mindful of the last year and what he had to go through, we’ve got to be cognizant of that. ... I’m excited for him to start the season healthy and not being in that rehab mode.”

Lid lifter

Roberts said right-hander Michael Grove will start Saturday’s first Cactus League game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Veteran reliever Matt Andriese and left-hander Bryan Hudson are among those also expected to pitch.