MILWAUKEE -- Jacob Misiorowski hovered around “only” 100 mph and generated fewer swings and misses than in some of his more electric starts this season. But in a matchup against one of the pitchers he admired most growing up in suburban Kansas City, Misiorowski reminded everyone that there is more to pitching than pure velocity.
Cementing his status as the frontrunner for the National League Cy Young Award with about five weeks remaining in the regular season, Misiorowski lowered his Major League-leading ERA to 1.68 by holding the Braves to four hits in six scoreless innings of Friday’s 2-1 Brewers win at American Family Field.
It was an old-school matchup of aces that had the feel of October, and the type of game to match. Misiorowski dueled Braves ace left-hander Chris Sale in front of a sellout crowd of 40,130 for a victory that moved the Brewers to a season-high 31 games over .500 and made them the first team in the Majors to reach 80 victories.
“That’s what the fans came to see, right?” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “Sale versus Miz. It was really Braves versus Brewers, but a lot of people came for the [matchup].”
Those fans got all of the above. The teams combined for 17 hits but 16 of those were singles. The only extra-base hit belonged to Braves outfielder Michael Harris II, who lined a double off Misiorowski with two outs in the sixth inning.
That’s because the game also featured playoff-caliber defense.
In the fifth inning, Braves right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. picked up Luis Lara’s base hit in the right-field corner, whirled and threw a 92.3 mph dart to the infield to deny Lara a double. It hurt in the moment, but afterward Lara could say he was thrown out in the big leagues by his favorite player.
And an inning later, Lara returned the favor when he made a daring, leaping catch of a Matt Olson drive to the angled section of the wall in center field. Lara crashed into that padded wall but held onto the baseball, saving a run in the process when Harris followed with his double.
“I think we need to change his name tag to Air Lara,” Misiorowski said.
Misiorowski kept the runner right there. He retired Ozzie Albies on a flyout to right field using not his signature four-seam fastball, but a cutter, and departed after 96 pitches with a 2-0 lead. Of those pitches, 39.6 percent were either a slider or a cutter, a season high for that grouping.
“The offspeed felt great. I felt that was the only thing I had ‘on’ today,” Misiorowski said. “The body felt a little off. Nothing weird. It was one of those days where it was just a down day. I had to grind through it and make it work.”
“I think last year it would have been the slider, or continue battling with the fastball,” said catcher William Contreras. “Being able to mix different pitches, yeah, it’s a different look than he would have given you last year.”
The Brewers’ win mattered most, but perhaps Misiorowski will get to look back on this as the day he cemented the NL Cy Young Award. Besides leading the Majors in ERA, he still leads in strikeouts (216), WHIP (0.76) and average against (.152).
“It seems like he's in a league of his own this year,” Sale said. “It's probably the most impressive fastball I've ever seen. We knew it was going to be tough sledding tonight.”
“That's awesome to hear from a guy like Sale,” Misiorowski said. “He was definitely a guy I looked up to, and still do.”
He topped out at 103.1 mph on Friday, but that pitch was an outlier on a day his fastball averaged 100.1 mph, eighth-lowest of his 24 starts this season. Misiorowski’s 33 percent whiff rate was fifth-lowest this season.
“There could be some fatigue involved here, but we’re trying to get him to understand that you don’t have to feel great to perform great,” Murphy said. “I think he’s getting that.”
It’s called pitching.
Last year at this time, Misiorowski might not have been able to adjust on a day that his fastball was human.
“That’s the mental side,” Misiorowski said. “That’s all of the prep coming into this year, understanding what I need to do and how my stuff works. William and I have definitely got that under control a lot better than last year.”
It’s not as if Misiorowski couldn’t reach back when he needed to. He still stuck out six, which continued a streak of 20 consecutive starts with at least that many strikeouts. He’s the first pitcher in Brewers history with a streak like that, and it’s only the 18th such stretch in a single season since at least 1900. Zack Wheeler was the last to do that, going 20 straight starts with at least six strikeouts just last season for the Phillies.
“It’s 100-101 [mph]. It’s a tick down. You guys are spoiled,” closer Trevor Megill said. “He’s growing in front of us. It’s a guy getting more mature with his stuff and his arsenal. We’ve been fortunate to see it on our side of the field.”