MILWAUKEE -- Jacob Misiorowski won’t just be pitching opposite a fellow National League Cy Young Award contender when the Brewers host the Braves on Friday afternoon.
He’ll be pitching against one of his favorite players growing up.
Left-hander Chris Sale is scheduled to start opposite Misiorowski’s Brewers at 3:10 p.m. CT on Friday when the teams open a unique three-game series that begins with two afternoon games at American Family Field before concluding in Williamsport, Pa., with MLB’s annual Little League Classic.
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“I don’t really focus on matchups, but it’s going to be fun,” said Misiorowski, who called meeting Sale at last year’s All-Star Game one of the highlights of Misiorowski’s invitation to the Midsummer Classic, just five starts into his big league career. “It’s like playing [Clayton] Kershaw last year. One of those moments where it’s, holy cow, you’re in the big leagues.”
Sale is still one of the best pitchers in baseball at age 37, making this a matchup of MLB’s 1-2 in ERA (Misiorowski leads at 1.75, Sale is second at 2.16). Misiorowski also leads MLB in strikeouts (210), WHIP (0.75) and opponents average (.151), with Sale among the league’s top 13 in each of those categories.
Misiorowski was eight years old when Sale made his Major League debut. Besides the fact that he was a perennial All-Star in his early seasons with the White Sox and Red Sox, what did Misiorowski like best about the lefty?
“I like how he is, how he shows emotion,” Misiorowski said. “He was one of the first true guys to really show emotion back in the day. When he got a big strikeout, he would let you know. I think that was cool. As a kid, that’s where I got it from. I’m not trying to be one of those quiet guys who just walks off.”
There was also Sale’s lanky build at 6-foot-6. As Misiorowski hit a growth spurt on the way to standing at 6-foot-7 today, it was something a young pitcher could relate to.
“That was definitely a good point as a kid,” Misiorowski said. “You saw that guy and thought, OK, I can do it too. There’s something in play with that.”
Both starters have already seen this opponent this season, albeit not in the same game. Misiorowski took a tough-luck loss in his first career outing against the Braves on June 19 at Truist Park, allowing two earned runs on five hits in six innings after carrying a shutout into the sixth. And Sale earned a no-decision the next night after holding the Brewers to two unearned runs over 5 2/3 inning of a game that ended with Ozzie Albies’ pop-fly walkoff home run.
Misiorowski is coming off a big win over the Dodgers and Sale is coming off a loss at Arizona, but that was more about the Braves’ offense. Sale capped an 108-pitch outing with his fastest fastball of the season (99.1 mph) and yielded only one run over six innings, becoming one of just seven pitchers of the Live Ball Era (since 1920) to post a 2.20 ERA or better through the first 22 starts of their age 37 or older season.
The others are Spud Chandler (1946), Dutch Leonard (1948), Kevin Brown (2003), Roger Clemens (2005), Max Scherzer (2022) and Justin Verlander (2022).
“The dude’s good, so the team has its work cut out,” Misiorowski said.