Miz grinds into the 5th, keeps LA in check in Crew's Game 1 win

MILWAUKEE – Even for Major League Baseball’s stingiest pitcher during the regular season, October can be a different animal.

Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski followed a four-inning, 88-pitch outing against the Padres in Game 1 of the NLDS with a 4 1/3-inning, 94-pitch clash with the Dodgers in Milwaukee's 2-1 win in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday night at American Family Field, foiled by foul balls and lacking the level of swing and miss that made the 24-year-old right-hander the hardest pitcher to hit during the regular season.

But he still battled hard enough to depart after issuing a one-out walk in the fifth inning with the teams tied at 1, and he watched reliever DL Hall escape that threat by inducing a Freddie Freeman double play.

And with that, Misiorowski became a spectator.

He came out firing 11 consecutive fastballs, the first at 102.3 mph to Mookie Betts and the angriest at 104.0 mph to Freeman, who singled for the night’s first baserunner. On the 12th pitch, Misiorowski threw his first offspeed pitch, a slider, and induced Will Smith’s inning-ending double play.

He walked off the mound like it was just another start in the middle of June. That was a good sign for the Brewers.

“Miz is emotional,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said before the game. “And that’s good, we don’t want to bottle that up. But as he’s matured this year, you’ve seen huge changes in this kid in how he’s handled situations. He’s not just excited to get out of the first. He doesn’t want to burn any more energy.

“He wants to get out of the seventh.”

But that didn’t happen, because the second inning looked less like the first and more like Misiorowski’s 88-pitch, 30-foul ball, four-inning outing against the Padres in Game 1 of the NLDS. His 21.5 percent whiff rate in that game (11 swings and misses on 52 swings) was his lowest of the season, and it was more of the same in a 35-pitch second inning against the Dodgers that began with a four-pitch walk to slumping superstar Shohei Ohtani, included a 10-pitch walk to Kyle Tucker, and saw L.A. strike first on Andy Pages’ RBI single.

It could have been much worse. The walk to Tucker loaded the bases with one out before Misiorowski escaped a blow-up inning by inducing Kiké Hernández’s double play to shortstop.

Even when Misiorowski rebounded with a scoreless third inning, the Dodgers coaxed 22 more pitches and pushed the foul ball count for the outing to 16. And when a balk charged to Misiorowski extended the fourth inning by six more offerings, his pitch count stood at 85 pitches, 55 strikes.

“Jacob doesn’t have his best stuff,” Murphy told FOX in an in-game interview, “but he’s grinding though and doing everything he can. Love his competitiveness.”

But two batters into the fifth, it was over.