MILWAUKEE -- Brewers reliever Abner Uribe was happy to welcome a new member of Milwaukee’s flamethrower club. With Uribe, closer Trevor Megill and now 23-year-old right-hander Jacob Misiorowski, who will be called up to make his Major League debut on Thursday, the Brewers are about to have three pitchers who regularly reach triple digits on the radar gun.
“I’m excited,” Uribe said. “I want to see him throw hard. That makes me want to throw harder, too.”
Misiorowski, the league’s No. 68 prospect per MLB Pipeline and the Brewers’ top pitching prospect, got news of his promotion on Tuesday morning and was in Milwaukee for Wednesday’s 6-2 loss to the Braves, asking as many questions as possible of his new Major League teammates.
What did they tell him?
“The constant one was, ‘Just breathe,’” Misiorowski said. “‘Just breathe, you'll be fine. Just keep doing what you're doing.’
“It'll be exciting. The heart will be racing. But I don't know if I could say what it's going to feel like because I don't know.”
Here’s what you need to know about his arrival:
How can I watch?
Misiorowski is scheduled to throw the first pitch of his career at 6:40 p.m. CT on Pride Night at American Family Field against the Cardinals, one of the teams he watched growing up as a kid in Grain Valley, Missouri, just outside Kansas City.
The game, a matchup of Misiorowski and Cardinals ace Sonny Gray, will air on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin and the Brewers Radio Network. It can also be seen on MLB.TV.
What does he throw?
Misorowski has long been regarded for the power fastball that was already topping 100 mph at Crowder College, a community college that also produced Brewers left hander Aaron Ashby. But Misorowski took a significant step forward this season while posting a 2.13 ERA and 80 strikeouts in 63 1/3 innings at Triple-A Nashville by honing his command and his secondary stuff.
At Nashville he was throwing a four-seam fastball (65.7 percent of pitches, 97.7 mph average velocity), a slider (15.4 percent, 93.3 mph), a curveball (14.3 percent, 86.2 mph) and a changeup (4.6 percent, 90.8 mph).
His 103.0 mph fastball in the sixth inning on May 15 against the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate was the hardest tracked pitch by a true starting pitcher in the Majors or Minors this season. Mets prospect Raimon Gomez reached 104.5 mph in the first inning of an April start for the Mets’ Single-A club, but it was in a three-inning stint and he’s been working exclusively as a reliever since then.
“I was a little fired up,” he said. “It was a good moment. I think it was second and third and we were up by one run so it was one of those things where you had to do it to win the game, so I pulled it out of my back pocket.”
How did he put it all together this year?
“I think I just figured everything out and we just rolled with it,” Misiorowski said. “I don't think it was anything special, I think everything was just finally clicking.”
Why now?
If you’re talking purely from a baseball standpoint, the short answer is that Misiorowski ran out of things to prove at Triple-A.
“The stuff is the stuff, but just the ability to execute now is something that he’s much more comfortable with. He’s shown us that it’s probably the right time,” GM Matt Arnold said. “You want to have a loose framework of what they want to accomplish [at each level of development], but there’s the human element, too. Talking to people around the player about, ‘Is this guy going to be able to handle the moment?’
“I think you see it with some of the young guys we’ve seen here, whether it’s [Chad] Patrick or [Logan] Henderson or [Quinn] Priester -- just continuing to show they can overcome some adversity and do that at the highest level. It’s the ultimate challenge, and I think he’s ready for that.”
The Brewers considered a callup late last season, when they moved Misiorowski to Nashville’s bullpen to prepare for a possible callup as a reliever, including sending him to a “stay ready” camp in Arizona when the postseason began. Corbin Burnes debuted in relief, and Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta both got some early experience in the bullpen as well. With Misiorowski, however, the Brewers waited to call him up as a starter.
“You never know so you just stay ready,” Misiorowski said. “Be ready when my name gets called and have fun.”
How will he fit in the rotation?
After gathering opinions from the coaches and front office about how best to accommodate Misiorowski’s arrival, the Brewers decided to shift veteran right-hander Aaron Civale to a bullpen role, which manager Pat Murphy acknowledged is “a big move” for the player because all 122 of Civale’s regular season appearances in the Majors have been in a starting role, and his $8 million salary matches Freddy Peralta’s as the team’s highest-paid pitchers, and because Civale is a free agent at year’s end.
Because of those considerations, Murphy acknowledged that, “Yeah, he’s not happy.”
Murphy met with Civale about the shift on Tuesday and Arnold has had conversations with both Civale and his agent, Jack Toffey. Typically, teams who have players in this kind of position would trade him if possible, but that always takes a willing partner. Civale is 1-2 with a 4.91 ERA this season in five starts spanning 22 innings, having missed about seven weeks in April and May with a hamstring injury.
“He’s done nothing wrong here, certainly, and I think that he’ll continue to get chances,” Arnold said. “And things can change. We used how many, 17, different starters last year? There’s always something that can happen where he can slide back into that role and he’s proven he can do that at a high level in the major leagues and especially here. Right now we think it’s the right move for him and the team.”