Dustin May is pitching like one of MLB's best starters after a brutal 2026 opening

Dustin May walked into Citi Field on Tuesday and threw six scoreless innings against the Mets, and if you had watched his first two starts of the season, you would have been forgiven for not seeing that coming.

What happened

Per FanGraphs, May held the Mets to four hits and one walk while striking out six across those six scoreless frames. It was, by FanGraphs' account, his first scoreless start since August 12 of last year while with the Red Sox, and it came with his first win since April 21. The outing capped what FanGraphs describes as perhaps the best sustained run of a career that has been interrupted repeatedly by injury — a stretch that has placed him, per the outlet, among the game's top starters over that span.

The road to Tuesday was not a straight one. Per FanGraphs, May exited in the fourth inning in both of his first two starts of 2026 — at home against the Rays on March 29, and then in Detroit against the Tigers on April 4. Those back-to-back abbreviated outings, arriving on the heels of what FanGraphs characterizes as a rough 2025 season, raised reasonable questions about whether St. Louis had miscalculated by handing the 28-year-old right-hander a one-year, $12.5 million deal.

Why it matters

St. Louis brought May aboard to be a meaningful piece of their rotation, and for the first several weeks of the season, that investment looked shaky. What FanGraphs is now reporting is that the version of May the Cardinals were presumably paying for has, in fact, shown up — just on a slight delay, the way a flight out of a hub city sometimes does, and with considerably more drama in the interim.

FanGraphs notes that over his previous seven starts heading into Tuesday, May had averaged six innings per outing with a 3.86 ERA and a 3.03 FIP. Those are the numbers of a rotation anchor, not a reclamation project. The scoreless performance against New York added to that body of work and, per FanGraphs, extended what the outlet is calling one of the better stretches of his career.

For a Cardinals team that has had a difficult season by the standings, a starter pitching at this level is not a trivial thing. It does not change the club's position in the standings, but it does change what the organization knows about what it has — and what it might have going forward.

The numbers

FanGraphs supplies the granular pitching figures: a 3.86 ERA and a 3.03 FIP over May's previous seven starts, with an average of six innings per outing. The gap between those two numbers — ERA sitting above FIP — is the kind of thing that tends to attract attention from analysts, since FIP strips out the outcomes on balls in play and focuses on what a pitcher directly controls. A FIP of 3.03 is a number that belongs in conversations about the better starters in the league.

Tuesday's line — six innings, four hits, one walk, six strikeouts, no runs — fits neatly within that profile. It is the kind of start that does not require a lot of editorial assistance to look good.

The Cardinals carry a 77-85 record, which contextualizes the environment around him. A starter posting a 3.03 FIP over a seven-start stretch is doing something real regardless of the win column behind him, and the Cardinals' record makes the individual performance stand out rather than get absorbed into a pennant race narrative.

Where the club stands

St. Louis sits at 77-85, fourth in the NL Central, 26 games back in the division. The Cardinals have been eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race, and they are currently on a four-game losing streak. Their Wild Card ranking sits seventh, 11.0 relative to the cut line — a number that, at this point in the season, functions more as a historical marker than an operational concern.

The upcoming schedule has the Cardinals finishing their series at Citi Field on Thursday, with Hunter Dobbins drawing the probable start against Christian Scott. From there, St. Louis heads to Target Field for a weekend series against the Twins, with Kyle Leahy lined up for Friday against Joe Ryan and Matthew Liberatore scheduled for Saturday against Connor Prielipp.

May's next turn in the rotation is not listed among those probables, which means the next opportunity to see whether Tuesday was a continuation of the streak or a high point within it will come later in the schedule.

What we don't know yet

FanGraphs is reporting on a performance trend, not making a projection, and the piece frames May's emergence in terms of what has happened rather than what will. The outlet does not address whether the Cardinals have any plans around May beyond this season, what his health status is, or whether the organization views this stretch as a signal about his role going forward.

The 3.03 FIP over the previous seven starts is a real number, but FIP is a descriptive tool, not a guarantee. FanGraphs does not claim otherwise, and neither does this desk.

Seven-plus starts is a meaningful sample; it is not a career. The picture FanGraphs is painting is a compelling one, and the outlet frames the run as sustained rather than fluky — but the Cardinals' schedule will keep providing tests, and the results of those tests are, at present, unknown.

What to watch

The obvious question is whether May's next start extends the streak or interrupts it. FanGraphs frames the last seven-plus outings as a sustained run rather than a single good game, which gives the trend more weight than a one-off performance would carry — but the sample is still what it is.

More broadly, a 28-year-old right-hander on a one-year deal who is reportedly pitching like one of the better starters in the league is the kind of player whose name tends to come up in various organizational conversations as the calendar moves. FanGraphs does not report any such conversations, and this desk is not going to invent them. But the performance the outlet is describing is the kind that tends to generate attention, and the Cardinals — sitting where they sit in the standings — are in a position where that attention could take a number of different forms.

For now, the story is simpler than any of that: a pitcher who looked like a mistake in April has looked like a bargain since, and on Tuesday night at Citi Field, he threw six scoreless innings and collected his first win since April 21. The Cardinals are on a four-game skid. May, at least, did not contribute to that particular streak.