MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – JULY 08: Jacob Misiorowski #32 of the Milwaukee Brewers reacts after striking … More
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After recording his 3,000th career strikeout his last time out, veteran left-hander Clayton Kershaw has been busy dealing with all the media attention that comes with such a milestone as well as preparing for his next scheduled start against the Milwaukee Brewers.
So busy, in fact, that he didn’t get to do too much research on his counterpart in that outing, rookie right-hander Jacob Misiorowski, a flame-throwing phenom that has quickly established himself as one of the best young pitchers in all of baseball during his first few weeks in the big leagues.
So Tuesday night, Misiorowski introduced himself to Kershaw and the Dodgers in impressive fashion, striking out a career-high 12 batters over six innings of one-run ball to lead Milwaukee to a 3-1 victory over the defending World Series champs.
“I know him now,” Kershaw said afterwards. “That was super impressive. That was unbelievable.”
It was, indeed all of those things but it was also exactly what the Brewers have come to expect from the 23-year-old phenom who could very well be the kind of rotation anchor for Milwaukee that Kershaw has been for the Dodgers since he reached the major leagues in 2008.
Misiorowski has been nothing short of dominant through his first five big-league starts. He’s allowed a total of eight runs – five of them coming his last time out when he took his first career loss against the Mets – while striking out 33 batters over 25 2/3 innings.
His 12 strikeouts Tuesday were the most recorded by an MLB rookie this season and most by any Brewers pitcher since Freddy Peralta struck out 13 against the Rockies in August of 2023.
What’s more impressive, though, is how Misiorowski recorded those strikeouts. Despite a fastball that hit the 100 MPH mark or 22 times, only three of them resulted in a strikeout. The vast majority – seven, to be exact – came by way of the curveball with his slider and changeup also recording one each.
More than anything else, Misiorowski’s pitch mix and mastry of his secondary offerings left Dodgers manager Dave Roberts impressed.
“This is a guy with obviously a triple-digit fastball and the breaking ball, he was getting it over for a strike,” Roberts said. “He was throwing it behind in counts. He was tough to navigate.”
The lone blemish on Misorowski’s line came in the first inning, when Shohei Ohtani belted an 0-2 curveball for a 431-foot home run to center, his 31st of the season.
After that, though, Misiorowski was nearly flawless. He struck out the next three batters to get out of the first, then first two to open the second and had 12 through five.
He ran into trouble in the sixth, allowing a leadoff walk to Ohtani and single to Mookie Betts but got out of the inning unscathed thanks to some heads-up play by his defense to preserve a 2-1 lead.
“We normally could have taken him out in the sixth,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “But his stuff just ticked up in the sixth. We’re like, ‘Keep him in.’ He went through the heart of the order a third time, and that’s not easy against a team like this.”
Indeed, facing the Dodgers’ vaunted lineup isn’t easy for most pitchers but its becoming more and more clear every time he takes the mound that Misiorowski isn’t most pitchers.
“He’s just broken the shell, man,” Murphy said. “He’s just broken the egg and … he’s still got gooey stuff coming off him, all arms and legs. There’s something special about him. I’m excited for him, all of these opportunities and the way it’s happening for him.”
