Miz K's first 5 batters, walks last 3 in roller-coaster outing at Fenway

BOSTON – Jacob Misiorowski went toe-to-toe with Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet for parts of six innings on Tuesday, mowing through Boston’s order with 10 strikeouts among the 24-year-old Brewers right-hander’s first 16 outs recorded. He was cruising. And judging from the emotion that poured out of him between innings, he was loving it.

Until, suddenly, he wasn’t.

Misiorowski’s command vanished into the cold night with one out in the sixth after his legs got heavy. After 55 of his first 88 pitches found the strike zone, 12 of the last 13 pitches missed. He walked Jarren Duran and Willson Contreras in succession on eight pitches. Following a mound visit, Misiorowski went 3-and-0 on Wilyer Abreu before walking him, too.

And just like that, a special night had turned sour. Misiorowski yielded to left-hander DL Hall and watched from the dugout as all three runners scored, the difference in the Brewers’ 3-2 loss at Fenway Park.

“The game plan was to pound the zone,” Misiorowski said. “For the first five [innings], I did it.”

“That's a really good kid on the other side,” Crochet said. “Clearly, this stuff's incredible. So we were grinding all night just for baserunners, period.”

So what derailed Misiorowski in the sixth?

It was the same thing most starting pitchers fight while they are still building endurance in the early weeks of the regular season: Fatigue. Somewhere around the turn between the fifth and sixth innings, Misiorowski’s legs got tired.

“You could tell it wasn’t all there,” Misiorowski said. “One of the most important things for me is staying in the legs. It’s just a part of it. You’ve got to figure it out. You have to keep going and compensate for the legs not being there and get the ball in the zone.”

Along the way, the Brewers tried to help carry their pitcher through it, needing all the length they could get on a night that relievers Grant Anderson and Angel Zerpa were both “down” due to recent use, Aaron Ashby was available for emergency use only and rookie Shane Drohan (Milwaukee’s No. 25 prospect) was being reserved to start Wednesday’s series finale in what will be his Major League debut.

So with Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill in reserve for the later innings, manager Pat Murphy had a left-hander, Hall, and a right-hander, Jake Woodford, warming as Misiorowski began to teeter.

There were two mound visits – catcher William Contreras and backup catcher Gary Sánchez for what looked like an animated discussion after four big misses to Duran to start the fateful sequence, then pitching coach Chris Hook after four more big misses to Willson Contreras.

If the Brewers were going to make a change to the left-hander Hall with lefty-hitting Abreu due to hit for Boston, this might have been the moment. But it wasn’t the right time, Murphy said.

“Just because a guy’s left-handed – that’s not what Hall’s forte is, to just face lefties,” Murphy said. “Our bullpen is a little bit depleted. Hall was going to be the next guy to get to Uribe or Megill.”

So the Brewers stuck with their budding ace. Had he retired Abreu, Misiorowski would have faced Trevor Story, too, Murphy said.

As it was, Hall took over to face Story and had him in an 0-2 count before Story delivered a two-run double. Former Brewer Caleb Durbin followed with a pinch-hit RBI groundout for critical insurance.

“We were trying to give [Misiorowski] every opportunity because he was pitching so well,” Murphy said. “He was one pitch away. He was pitching so darn good.”

What can he take away from enduring that experience?

“Figure it out,” Misiorowski said. “Just keep going with it and trust that mechanics are going to bring me back.”

The finish ruined what had started as one of the most dominant of Misiorowski’s 18 Major League outings so far. He struck out the first five batters who dug into the batter’s box against him, and faced the minimum until Willson Contreras – of course, it had to be him – lined a single over the second baseman for Boston’s first hit with two outs in the bottom of the fourth.

Misiorowski shrugged it off and continued matching Crochet, zero for zero. When he surrendered a two-out single and hit Connor Wong with a two-out, two-strike curveball in the fifth inning, Misiorowski retired Isiah Kiner-Falefa on a bouncer to second base to end that threat. He was at 83 pitches at that point, and his fastball was holding around 98 mph.

But things were about to change, and not just for Misiorowski. Crochet wobbled in the seventh after being staked to a lead, when he hit David Hamilton with the bases loaded for one run and Christian Yelich drove in another with a groundout to make it a one-run game.

But the Red Sox held on.

“You don’t want to come in and say it’s going to be a pitchers’ duel, because you want to go get that guy,” Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick said of facing Crochet. “It’s always a fun matchup to go against guys like that. We kind of knew we were going to be in a dogfight today."