The Milwaukee Brewers weren’t comfortable putting rookie Jacob Misiorowski in their playoff rotation, leaving it up to fans’ imaginations just what a 6-foot-7 rookie who averages nearly 100 mph with his fastball would look like as a bullpen weapon.
Turns out it was beyond almost anyone’s imagination.
Misiorowski entered in the third inning of a tie game in Game 2 of their National League Division Series against the Chicago Cubs and didn’t give up the ball until the Cubs were figuratively blown away and he was in line for his first playoff victory. The Miz pitched three scoreless innings, giving up just one hit and striking out four to stabilize the Crew in their 7-3 victory Oct. 6.
Misiorowski hit at least 100 mph on the radar gun 31 times and topped out at 104 mph twice facing his first batter, Cubs slugger Kyle Tucker. Since the pitch-tracking era began in 2008, only Reds starter Hunter Greene and two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom have hit 100 more in a single game – and Misiorowski pitched just three innings.
Milwaukee can eliminate its Lake Michigan rivals with one more win in Game 3 at Wrigley Field on Oct. 8. The Brewers overcame a first-inning home run by the Cubs for the second consecutive game to hit three more of their own.
Yet it was pitching they needed badly, and Misiorowski delivered.
Was the kid nervous? Perhaps a little.
When he ended his first inning of work by inducing a comebacker from Carson Kelly, Misiorowski waved off first baseman Andrew Vaughn and sprinted – as a storklike figure only can – toward first base to touch the bag himself.
Misiorowski then journeyed into foul ground, pumped his fist and exulted toward the adoring throng at American Family Field. Just burning off a little extra energy.
Milwaukee is just one win away from breaking a six-series playoff losing streak, even as it appears the club will once again have to take some unorthodox routes to reach its first World Series since 1982.
In just their second playoff game this year, manager Pat Murphy opted for a bullpen game, and lefty Aaron Ashby gave up a three-run first-inning homer to Seiya Suzuki. But Vaughn responded with his own three-run jack in the bottom of the inning – the first time in playoff history multi-run homers were hit in both halves of the first – to square the affair.
Misiorowski was handed a clean inning to begin, and he plowed through the third, fourth and fifth, allowing just a single and one walk. William Contreras and Jackson Chourio hit homers in the third and fourth to put the Brewers ahead for good.
They can go for the clincher with Quinn Priester in Game 3. And should the Cubs manage to stave off elimination once or twice, the Brewers know a towering rookie will once again be available to serve as the hardest-throwing fireman the playoffs have likely ever seen.