MILWAUKEE -- Jacob Misiorowski turned his first career Opening Day start into a strikeout clinic, and the Brewers were just getting started.
Misiorowski fanned 11 White Sox hitters to set a new franchise record for strikeouts on Opening Day, and the four relievers who followed him to the mound ran that total all the way up to 20 in Thursday’s 14-2 win at American Family Field -- tying the modern Major League mark for strikeouts in any nine-inning game since at least 1901.
So you can put the Brewers’ combo of Misiorowski, Aaron Ashby, Grant Anderson, DL Hall and Jake Woodford in the history books alongside the likes of Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood. Including those individual gems, teams have struck out 20 opposing hitters in a nine-inning game only nine times in the last 125 seasons, most recently the Astros and Mets within a three-month span in 2022 before the Brewers on Thursday.
“We looked up after the fourth inning and saw Miz had 10,” said Hall, who struck out three in the eighth. “We were like, ‘Dang.’”
“I didn’t even hear about that until a little bit ago,” said Brewers newcomer Woodford, who was acquired in a trade with the Rays on Tuesday, arrived Wednesday and shrugged off Munetaka Murakami’s homer leading off the ninth inning on Thursday to log the three strikeouts his team needed for 20. “That’s a cool way to start the year.”
It started with Misiorowski. The Brewers’ 23-year-old fireballer rebounded from White Sox second baseman Chase Meidroth’s leadoff shot by striking out the next three batters in the first inning, and it was off to the races for the Brewers, who took the lead with William Contreras’ bases-clearing double in the second inning and got home runs from Sal Frelick and Jake Bauers on the way to scoring double-digit runs on Opening Day for the first time since 1999 -- and pushing to within one run of the club record for runs scored on Day 1.
Misiorowski set a dominant tone in his 15th career Major League start, allowing that lone run on two hits in five innings with three walks and 11 strikeouts on a record-setting day. The club mark of eight Opening Day strikeouts was originally set by Ben Sheets the day before Misiorowski was born in 2002, then tied by Freddy Peralta in both 2024 and ‘25.
“Sometimes you’ve got to get punched in the face to respond,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “I thought Miz did a great job responding.”
At 23 years and 357 days old, he became the youngest pitcher to log double-digit strikeouts on Opening Day since Mariners phenom Félix Hernández in 2007, when he struck out 12 at 20 years, 359 days old.
Hernández is one of the six pitchers since 1900 who logged double-digit strikeouts on Opening Day at a younger age than Misiorowski:
• Cleveland’s Bob Feller in 1939 (20 years, 169 days)
• Reds’ Gary Nolan in 1969 (20 years, 315 days)
• Mariners’ Hernández in 2007 (20 years, 359 days)
• Cleveland’s Gary Bell in 1960 (23 years, 154 days)
• Dodgers’ Don Drysdale in 1960 (23 years, 264 days)
• Cleveland’s Herb Score in 1957 (23 years, 313 days)
The Brewers would love to see Misiorowski develop into a pitcher like Sheets or Hernández or Feller or Drysdale, and he was off to a good start last season when he burst onto the big league scene with five starts so electric they earned Misiorowski the earliest invitation to an All-Star Game on record.
He struggled down the stretch but re-emerged in October as a postseason bullpen ace. This spring, when the Brewers lost Quinn Priester to the injured list (right thoracic outlet syndrome) and determined that Brandon Woodruff would need more time to build his pitch count, they tabbed Misiorowski as the third-youngest Opening Day starter in franchise history.
“The first Opening Day was wild,” Misiorowski said. “There was a lot of stuff going on, a giant flag in the outfield. It was cool to see. There’s a lot of emotions going, trying to figure it out. Giving up the home run sucks, but the guy got to it. I threw it up and in, and he got to it. Oh well.”
Once he found a rhythm against the White Sox, he generated 25 swings and misses. That was more than any of his Major League outings last year.
“I mean, it just feels like you're floating, almost,” Misiorowski said. “You don’t feel anything. You’re just going through the motions and it’s working out.”
It was the start of history. The Brewers’ previous club record for strikeouts in a game of any length was 19 in a 14-inning, 6-5 loss to the Pirates in 2010.
“That was cool to be a part of,” Hall said. “If anybody were to name a pitching staff that could do it, I think they would be dumb not to guess that it would be us.”