Dustin May doesn’t just bring a deep pitch mix to Milwaukee. He brings two different versions of himself to the mound.
That’s the puzzle the Brewers are trying to solve as September rolls on. May has enough stuff to attack hitters in a bunch of ways - three fastballs, two high-spin breaking balls and a changeup - but the way he delivers those pitches may be tipping his hand. The arm slot he uses gives hitters a preview of what’s coming, and that matters when a pitcher is trying to keep a lineup guessing.
The split starts with the pitch groups themselves. Against right-handed hitters, May leans on a sinker as his main fastball, mixes in some cutter and the occasional four-seamer, and pairs that with a sweeper as his primary breaking ball.
That sinker/sweeper combination is especially notable because of how closely he can line up the release characteristics. With the lower arm angle, he can get more around the side of the ball and create more east/west movement, a look that gets even nastier from his extreme position on the first-base side of the rubber.
But the bigger issue is the gap between that look and everything else he throws.
May is effectively working with two separate arsenals, and they come from two clearly different release points. He drops his arm slot for the sinker, sweeper and changeup-ish group, then jumps almost 10° higher for the four-seam fastball, cutter and curveball.
That’s a real giveaway. If a hitter picks up the arm slot early, the list of likely pitches shrinks fast.
For a right-handed hitter, the higher slot points toward either a cutter or a four-seam fastball, especially since May rarely turns to his curveball against righties. Those two pitches live in a pretty similar velocity range, too, so there isn’t much of a speed change to throw off timing.
Individually, they’re good pitches. Together, though, they don’t fully create the kind of chaos a diverse arsenal is supposed to provide.
That may help explain why May has been hit hard when he’s missed in the zone since joining the Brewers.
The pattern has become even more pronounced as the season has gone on. His four-seam fastballs and cutters are coming out from a higher arm angle than at any point in his professional career, while the sinker and sweeper group has stayed closer to where it started the year.
The left-handed side of the platoon brings its own wrinkle. May’s best Brewers outing from a swing-and-miss standpoint came in his last appearance against the Reds, when he leaned heavily on his curveball against an aggressive lineup and abandoned the sweeper.
He also used the four-seamer more than the cutter in that game, though that’s only one outing. In August, Milwaukee tried to feature the cutter as a primary pitch to left-handers in an effort to help with May’s usual platoon splits, which have shown up throughout his career.
And as expected, the Brewers haven’t been eager to lean on the changeup.
The four-seamer and cutter are both quality offerings, but May would benefit from changing speeds more often if he wants to generate more swings and misses. That’s been a problem for him since joining Milwaukee, especially in two-strike counts.
September should tell the story on the curveball, too. Sweepers generally don’t fare well against opposite-handed hitters because they move toward the hitter’s wheelhouse on the inner third of the plate.
So the question isn’t whether May has enough stuff. He does. The question is whether the Brewers can make those two arsenals work together without making him too readable.
His route to an October rotation spot may hinge on that answer. He’ll need to find something closer to the form he showed in May and June, but Milwaukee doesn’t require every starter to be a classic innings-eater. The Brewers were comfortable mixing and matching and using bullpen games last year, so May doesn’t have to become a traditional workhorse to matter in October.
What he does need is a way to miss bats more reliably. His lack of whiffs stood out in August, but his most recent start against a hot Cincinnati offense offered a reminder of why he’s such an interesting arm. After giving up a homer on a mistake to Elly De La Cruz, he showed off the adaptability that comes with carrying this many weapons, and when he locates them, the damage can be severe.
May’s next few starts should go a long way toward answering the Brewers’ biggest question: can they turn all that talent into a predictable plan without becoming predictable themselves? There isn’t much time left to sort it out, but his last outing at least gave Milwaukee a reason to believe one of baseball’s most unusual arsenals can still play a role in October.
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