The Brewers are going all in on this...

The Brewers are going all in with Dustin May in game three tonight of the NLDS, despite many people believing that Robert Gasser really earned the nod. The Brewers are looking to snap a terrible streak on the road in the playoffs, and on the other end for San Diego, it'll be Nick Pavetta that gets the nod for the Padres. We're going to talk about all that and more on today's episode of Brewers Digest. I am your host, Taylor Brettel, and I got you covered on everything you need to know about the Milwaukee Brewers. We're just a couple hours away from first pitch in San Diego at Petco Park. The Brewers up two to nothing in the NLDS, looking for a perfect 3-0 sweep. That'd be very nice to get a lot of rest before the NLCS, and just kind of avoids the scariness of the series extending more than a game. But again, the headline is that Dustin May will be the starter. A lot of people I know are a little bit conflicted on this. Dustin May came over at the trade deadline. I thought he was the perfect piece that the Milwaukee Brewers needed. They didn't get someone like Scooball, because you'd probably have to give up someone like Henderson in that package, so I was totally okay with that. And Dustin May, you know, he came in expected to be a four or five type of pitcher, but now he's kind of the Brewers' starter pitcher three after Kyle Harrison has been struggling. You know, Brandon Woodruff is maybe he'll come back these playoffs, but it's most likely out for the season. Dustin May has really filled in as his third starter, but recently has definitely been struggling. So let's kind of look at what is the deal with Dustin May. Well, I'm going to take a look at him against the San Diego Padres. Dustin May had arguably his best outing, and I wouldn't really say arguably, I would say his best outing of this season and probably of his career actually against the San Diego Padres themselves before Dustin May came over to the Milwaukee Brewers. When he was a St. Louis Cardinal, this is what he did against the Padres. You can see this is earlier in the year. This is when the Cardinals had a better record than the Padres. The Padres were near 500 team. I get all of those factors, but Dustin May threw a nine inning one hitter against the San Diego Padres, and I believe only walked one batter as well, and I think despite those two things, he still faced the minimum 27 batters thanks to a double play or two. But this is what Dustin May did last time. We take a look right here at what his line was in this, and here it is. Nine innings, one hit, one walk, nine strikeouts, and then zeros in the run department, and obviously a zero in the home run department. So Dustin May has seen success against the San Diego Padres, but again, I know that that Padres team was around 500. This is why you play 162 games. It's earlier in the year. All those things totally make sense. So let's take a look a little bit on a bigger scale against the Padres, because Dustin May also faced the Padres, this time like actually in the San Diego while a brewer. Let's take a look at what his game log looks like right here. Well, his game log is pretty good. The last time he faced them was August 12th when the brewers were really struggling in that series in San Diego, but one of the reasons for the losses was not Dustin May's fault. He went seven innings, only allowed one run, which was a homer. Struck out six, walked two, gave up four hits. If the brewers could get seven innings of one-run baseball from Dustin May tonight, you could not ask for more. Now that's a very high bar, but you look at the Padres in general, Dustin May has only given up three earned runs against them in his entire time facing San Diego, and that is over a good amount of innings. You see three games, all of them start, so nice to see Dustin May does have some success against the Padres. Despite these recent struggles, that is still something that you look at. He also has a lot of postseason experience. Robert Gasser really, I think, only has two and two-thirds innings worth of postseason experience. That's another factor. Dustin May on that Dodgers team that won the World Series, he actually has two rings in Major League Baseball, so Dustin May has that experience, and that's what Pat Murphy talked about a lot, but this is a road game, and I did show you when they played the Padres when he was on the brewers, that was in a road environment, but that's a regular season road environment. I have to admit Petco Park is one of the best road atmosphere, or I should say home atmospheres for Padres fans sake in the playoffs. They get really loud. That seems like a very tough place to play, so how could Dustin May really handle home versus road and all these other little aspects? Well, we'll bring this up on here. This is his stats on the road versus home this season as a whole, so this is when he's on the Cardinals and when he's on the brewers. You see on the road, not great at all, a 5.88 ERA. When he's at home, a 3.94 ERA, gives up a lot more homers on the road. You see that the innings on the road significantly less, but the homers six more than at home, so lots of things not looking great for that reason. I want to take a look. You know one more kind of similar stat for Dustin May. His home versus away numbers this season as just a brewer and it flips, so maybe that's a little bit different. I know this is a small sample size too because he's only been a brewer for half of the season. The previous one combined his numbers with the brewers and with the Cardinals, but you look on the road of 4.70 ERA still is not great, but a little bit more success on the road as a brewer and we saw some of that success. It definitely showed in that other game against San Diego. So my question for you guys looking at this for Dustin May, what stat line can we be OK with from Dustin May tonight? I put blanks before each category. I want you guys to answer. Innings, hits, walks, strikeouts, earned runs. I'll only answer really the top and the bottom one. Those are obviously the most important. The brewers have used a lot of their bolting. Now they did have an off day yesterday, but they've used Trevor McGill back-to-back days. Trevor McGill did not look great on those back-to-back days. These Abner rebate on back-to-back days. He really only looked good in one of those. So it'll be interesting to see how Pat Murphy guides the bullpen tonight. I think we gotta see six innings from Dustin May. I'll go three runs. I don't think you can give up more than three runs through six innings. Nick Pavetta is a great pitcher. Also, Michael King, which I will flash in a second when talking about the Padres, he will be available out of the bullpen tonight. I mean, the backs are against the wall for the San Diego Padres. So hits wise, walk wise, strikeouts, you know what? I and you can answer those if you guys would like. I think it'll be big to not walk many batters. You don't want to leave runners on for San Diego. They've obviously struggled to drive them in, but that can flip, you know, on a dime, especially in the postseason at home. So for Dustin May tonight, I'm really hoping he can... I'll also get into the six. That's what I hope for Logan Henderson. So I'll say the same. If he gets into the six, I'll hope for two runs. If he goes through six, maybe three, because you have to put the expectations where they are, where Dustin May recently has been. He's really been struggling. A lot of people don't think he should be the starting pitcher three, but hey, Pat Murphy makes that decision, not us. Pat Murphy knows a good amount of ball, as we've seen. He made that decision to put Jackson Churio in the leadoff spot in game two. Churio got that fifth at bat and walked it off for the Brewers. So I'm trusting everything that that manager does because he's going to be a three-time manager of the year. But we look at the other pitcher on the other side for Nick Pavetta of the San Diego Padres, and this is a very interesting story. Nick Pavetta, a very good pitcher in Major League Baseball, but has been dealing with injuries. So a really small sample size that we see from him this season, but that small sample size has looked really good. Again, talking about the injuries, he's been dealing with elbow injuries, really officially one on the IL in mid-April, so early to mid-April. So that was a long time that he was out this season, but you still see his numbers, three and two record, a whip, just a hair over one, and a 2.86 ERA. So this is no slouch of a pitcher, even though it might not be Michael King, but Michael King could come in out of the bullpen. This is not a pitcher to overlook. Looking at how he's done against the Brewers, again, this is a veteran pitcher in Major League Baseball. He has not pitched well against the Brewers at any point in his career, but again, this goes back to 2017. There's not a single Brewer that was hitting on that 2017 team that's now here. Again, that's almost 10 years. So I just thought I'd put all the games up because it's interesting to look at. I mean, there was one in 2025, one in 2024 when he was on the Red Sox, and the two years before that as well. So the most recent example is 2025, five and two thirds, he gave up three earned runs. So I'll take a good amount of that. I mean, you see the earned runs, they are not great against the Brewers, and that was also in San Diego as well. So it's not like, oh, is that American family field? Could be a little different. I just thought it's something interesting to look at, but there's obviously no example this year. We go to his game log in 2026, and this is it. Again, he's been out for most of the season with that elbow injury. Here is his game log. You see the game at the top is the most recent one that he has pitched, which came on September 24th against the Dodgers in LA. He went four and two thirds innings and gave up no earned runs. The outing before that, five innings, one earned run, the one before that, four innings, two earned runs. So him coming back from this injury, he could only be four or five innings, even if he's pitching well, but he has been pitching really, really well. I mean, his one bad start is the one that was the first one of the year in March, like, and I'm not going back that far to judge a guy right now in October for the postseason. So there's lots to look at right there. But again, I'll put this up here for you guys because this did get announced. Stammen said that Michael King will be available out of the bullpen on Tuesday. So that would be something to watch. Who knows when they're going to use him? It could just be to come in for Pavetta. If Pavetta is pitching good, if he's pitching bad, it could just be to come in for Pavetta, no matter what. But the Brewers have a job. You know what? They're up 2-0. How about they finish them? This is the graphic that the Brewers put on their social media. And I agree. I mean, we saw an NLDS last year. Don't get me wrong. Having game five at American Family Field, beating the Cubs, that was electric. But winning games one and two and then slipping in games three and four, I think a lot of us had a frog in our throat, worried for that game five. Obviously, confidence that the Brewers would get it done, but kind of like, oh boy, why is it getting to a game five? We've been so dominant in the first two. So I'd really like to see the Brewers do a little bit of a better job of that. Again, this is what the Brewers saying, finish them. Because the big thing about the Brewers in the postseason that I don't think many people realize, they haven't won on the road in a long, long, long time. Here is a post right here on X that kind of fascinated me. Then I really thought about it and this is completely true. The Milwaukee Brewers have not won a road game in the postseason since game three of the 2018 NLCS. Since then, Milwaukee is 0-11 away from home and 8-8 inside Miller Park slash American Family Field because that name change happened in the midst. So I like this right here from Kendrick saying, just get a win in San Diego and end this. So when you think about those losses, I mean, 0-11. When I first heard this, I'm like, well, how many games really were there, right? There was the one game against the Nats. There was the two games in LA in that COVID season. Then you realize how many years have really built up. So that's pretty tough. But what lineup could get it done for the Brewers? Well, this is the lineup that they are announcing tonight. I'll flash this on the big screen for you guys so you can read it along with me. A little bit of a mix up here. Something that is interesting to me that I noticed is Bryce Turang in the four spot. Bryce Turang is the one bat that really needs to wake up in this postseason roster. I think he's two for his last 30, or two for 30 something in the postseason in general, I think are his numbers. I don't know the exact second digit of that 30 number, but I think it's like 35, 36, 37, 38 around there. Nonetheless, not great at all. I guess Pat Murphy is seeing that Bryce Turang. Maybe you get the honor of the four spot and maybe you want to put a little more power into your swing, get a little more confidence. Not sure. Pat Murphy, sometimes we look at his lineup, so we go, what? And then they always seem to work out. But outside of that, I don't mind this lineup at all. Makes complete sense to me. And yeah, this is what Pat Murphy's going with. Christian Jelic in the five spot. So hopefully he's able to do some damage. He's looked good in San Diego, had a homer there earlier this year. We know Bryce Turang has had good moments in San Diego as well. Maybe that's a little bit towards the reason. We got to look at the opponent's lineup as well. Who are the Padres putting out there? Well, hopefully we don't have to worry about it too much because Dustin May is shutting them down. But this is what the lineup is looking like for San Diego. Pretty consistent all throughout this series. And then again, Nick Pavetta getting the starting nod. So these are the two lineups that you will see in just a couple of hours for first pitch in San Diego. Really hoping that the Brewers just get the job done. And I'm talking to you guys after the game late tonight because this game is on the West Coast and is at 8.30 Central Time. So hoping I'm talking to you guys late after this one about a win and about looking forward to the NLCS. But as always, as I end every single episode, got to take it one game at a time. Hoping for a dub. Go Brew Crew. Hope to talk to you guys in a positive manner in just a couple of hours.