Back in 2020, not only did Dustin May become the first rookie to start Opening Day for the Dodgers in 39 years, but he finished that first full MLB season with the game’s most electric four-seam fastball (99.1 mph on average).

The future seemed exceptionally bright for the 6-foot-6 right-hander nicknamed “Big Red” for bright hair and beard that outlined his Texas snarl.

Litle did May know it at the time, but that would be the height of his big-league career prior to Monday night at Busch Stadium. Now with the Cardinals and trying to revive a career seemingly on a collision course with stardom just six years earlier, May befuddled the Padres all night in a nearly perfect, one-hitter that proved to be the first complete-game shutout of his career.

What made May’s career night even sweeter, he said, were all the mishaps along the way that threatened to derail his career completely.

“After all the stuff that I’ve been through in my career, that tops it,” May told Cardinals.TV after allowing only a Fernando Tatis Jr. walk and a Manny Machado single in Monday’s seventh inning of the Cards’ 3-0 victory. “That was fantastic.”

There was the torn UCL in May’s right elbow in May of 2021 that resulted in a Tommy John surgery that wiped out major chunks of that season and also 2022.

Then, came a 2023 season that proved memorable only because so many forgettable things kept happening to May. Already ruled out for the season in July of 2023 following surgery to repair another UCL sprain, May began choking on a piece of lettuce in a Phoenix-area restaurant and went through a life-threatening incident when he suffered an esophageal tear.

The arm injury and windpipe tear wiped out all of 2024, and 2025 – one split between the Dodgers and Red Sox after Los Angeles gave up on him and traded him away – proved to be little more than a developmental year. Still down more than 20 pounds from the medical scare and no longer able to rely on his once-blazing fastball, May discovered a sweeper out of necessity and struggled to a 4.96 ERA over 25 outings (23 starts).

The Cardinals, a club looking to rebuild after dealing away Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras and Brendan Donovan over the winter, took a flier on May in free agency. Before inking May to a one-year, $12 million deal, the Cardinals thinking went something like this: With his first injury-free offseason in years, Day had to be better in 2025, right?

“We placed a bet on if this guy was healthy, coming out of everything he’s had to deal with over the last few years,” Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol said. “We thought if he got back to his real fighting weight, had a real offseason and got after it the way we know he’s capable that he could do some really impressive things and he’s done exactly that. So, to have his (comeback) story and pitch the way he did tonight, it’s pretty awesome.”

May’s Cardinals tenure got off to a rocky start when he allowed 13 earned runs and 17 hits in his first two outings against the Rays and Tigers. After that, he beat the Red Sox, Guardians and Marlins, but suffered through an 0-4 May where he often got little run support. The most crushing loss during that stretch came on May 27, when he pitched six no-hit innings, but fell when he allowed two hits and an earned run in Milwaukee.

Not to be deterred, May changed the course of his season once the calendar hit June. The native of Justin, Texas is 2-0 with a 1.31 ERA over 20 2/3 innings of work this month. Even more impressively, he has fanned 24 hitters and walked just four over his last three outings.

“We stuck with the game plan through all nine and it was great,” said rookie catcher Jimmy Crooks, who has caught May’s last two outings as his scoreless streak has climbed to 15 straight innings. “We had a conversation before the game about what we were going to do, and we stuck with it throughout. Then, he was painting the corners and doing his job.”

May admitted that he got stronger as the night went on as he fed off stellar defensive plays made by left fielder Lars Nootbaar in the fifth inning and shortstop Masyn Winn in the seventh inning.

When the career-best night was complete – nine innings were a best and nine strikeouts tied a career best – May’s mind naturally went back to his health. For the first time since that heady season of 2020, May feels good again – both with his health and how the young and feisty Cardinals have “rejuvenated a lot more spark in me than I thought I had.”

After all the pain and frustration that he’s had to endure in recent years, May said he didn’t know if he would ever feel or pitch the way he did on Monday night again.

“This is about as good as I’ve felt in a long time,” he admitted in the afterglow of Monday’s win. “So, credit to the training staff, credit to the gam-planning and credit to my wife for keeping me healthy. And praise the Lord for letting me out and compete every night.”

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