Rumors surrounding the Milwaukee Brewers' pursuit of a big-name pitcher at the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline set the Brew City's expectations much higher than usual, so the acquisition of veteran starter Dustin May felt intriguing but a bit underwhelming at the time. Now, through five starts with the No. 1 seed Brewers, May hasn't done much to alter that sentiment.
Through five appearances, the 28-year-old righty has struggled mightily with 14 earned runs in 19.1 innings, including a disastrous two-inning, seven-run game against Seattle, a four-inning, four-earned-run game against the Rangers, and a start cut short when his first pitch of the game was smacked directly back toward him in what was a scary play.
May has been quite hard on himself about his recent performance, telling Brewers media after his Aug. 30 start against the Rangers, "you can blame it on a lot of things, but we're in September. There's really no excuses. I've gotta be better," and "it sucks to be sucking right now, but [May is] glad to get them out of the way now to get on a roll later."
It's natural for May's confidence to be rattled given how things have started in his Brewers tenure. With a 6.41 ERA and 16 strikeouts to 14 earned runs registered in five starts, it's hard not to get down on himself. But the Brewers cannot afford for one of their only veteran starters to get stuck in a rut with the Playoffs less than a month away, which leads to a handful more questions about where Milwaukee's coaching staff goes from here.
Can the Milwaukee Brewers trust Dustin May in the Playoffs, and how do they adjust if they cannot?
When Milwaukee gave up its pursuit of Tarik Skubal, the team decided to temper its aggressive approach and try to make a depth move with high upside and low impact. So far, it feels like letting go of Alexander Frias and Josiah Ragsdale was a loss on the Brewers' side — although they couldn't stand pat and do nothing with their bullpen, so it's hard to fault Matt Arnold for trying.
With that said, Milwaukee's six-man pitching rotation might need to be cut down to five if May can't figure out what's going wrong over the next month of baseball. Their core three will not change, with Jacob Misiorowski, Kyle Harrison, and Logan Henderson locked in as arguably the best trio of young pitchers in the entire league. They've also seen mixed-positive returns from lefty Shane Drohan and overall lackluster returns from Robert Gasser.
It feels too late to try and force a young player into the rotation from the minor leagues, so this is probably it as far as the starting rotation goes. Luckily, even on the nights when the starters are struggling, the Brewers have their secret weapon trio of Trevor Megill, Aaron Ashby, and the returning Abner Uribe to help them finish games.
However, unless May can turn his season around and become the player they expected him to be as a former Rookie of the Year candidate and World Series champion, they might have to deploy more of a mixed strategy in the postseason, leaning on some of their relievers to start or bridge the gap mid-game.
One thing is for sure: Pat Murphy will not give his starters a long leash in the postseason and won't be afraid to hurt some feelings in the pursuit of victory. He's not afraid to give his players some leeway in the regular season, but once it's winning time, he's going to put his foot down as needed.
So either May needs to get his act together fast, or he'll be out of the lineup for the biggest moments of the Brewers' season, which probably wouldn't bode well for his impending free agency either. It might sound harsh, but we're talking about a franchise contending for its first World Series victory in franchise history, so there is no room for error and everyone involved knows it.
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