Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers *(Daniel Shirey)*

Misiorowski has lived over the plate during his young MLB career. The best pitch in baseball, after strike one, is a plus-plus fastball. You know the Miz experience, an absolutely historic 4-seam with perceived velocities upward of 107 mph. In the regular season, that’s otherworldly.

For the World Series, the Rays have been wearing out their Trajekt machine to challenge the game's highest heat. Yes, Jacob is throwing an absolute snapper of a curveball and a biting cutter and slider, but his best pitch is undeniably his fastball. He throws it 63% of the time for a reason.

But the Rays knew he’d do that. It’s their best versus his best – Tampa simply needed to beat the in-zone flames by any means necessary.

When the average velocity starts with triple digits, contact really is a victory. This postseason, Misiorowski’s whiff rates have fallen significantly. Teams are just trying to make contact with the gas in order to try and beat a secondary and run up his pitch count.

That’s the thing. Nobody can really beat a pitcher like Misiorowski. You just want him out of the game. The Dodgers were successful at getting the Miz out in 4.1 innings by running his pitch count to 94. The Padres did well too, getting to 88 by 4.0 innings flat to force Pat Murphy to go get the bullpen.

That’s the goal for the Rays this whole game. Get Misiorowski back to the dugout and go beat the Brewers’ ‘pen. Might be difficult, but we’ll get to that later.

Nick Martinez is the opposing pitcher. Definitely not the same level of flames as Misiorowski, but definitely an excellent starter. A misplayed (but extremely difficult) flyout turned into a 103.1 triple to put pressure on Martinez. The drama built quickly as Contreras ERASED one! 2 - 0 Brewers early! The Rays already had a hill to climb.

Time for the second inning. Thirteen of Misiorowski’s first 18 pitches were four-seam fastballs, and he, as any starter would be, seemed a little wound up for Game 1 of the Classic. The Rays were too. Tampa Bay looked to be pressing just as hard to get to the white-hot heat. For this inning, it was a lot more of the same, except Misiorowski seemed to find the very best version of his fastball-cutter combo, summed up in the Mesa Jr. at-bat where Contreras tapped his head for a 101 mph strike. Now perfectly in tune, Milwaukee’s finest spun a 96.6 mph cutter. For you nerds like me out there, cutters at or above such velocity made up just 0.1% of all pitches thrown in the regular season. Most of them were by Reds reliever Graham Ashcraft, Camilo Doval, likely AL Cy Young winner Cam Schlittler, and your own Jacob Misiorowski.

Nick Martinez, staying within his best game, had Jackson Chourio questioning his existence against a 79 mph changeup, followed up by a ‘slow’ 95 mph upstairs to set down the Brewers’ sparkplug the next half inning. Boring, but undeniably great pitching from the veteran.

Hey Misiorowski is back for the third. Nothing really special for his standards. Contreras did a great job handling a slider way in the lefty batter box, so the breaking ball feel wasn’t quite there. Or is it. Soon after the ugly slide ball, Miz spun perhaps the most aggressive curveball you’ve ever seen. 89 mph, dotted perfectly at the knees.

Nick Martinez worked a pretty strong 3rd and 4th by retiring twelve straight, but Misiorowski spun a cutter a little too well and had Aranda feeling the wind off the seams as he dodged the ball by a millimeter. Proof of his Cy Young candidacy, Misiorowski had a small command blip but managed to fling a wicked arm-side curveball at 87 mph to punch out the No. 3 hitter. The command struggle turned into second and third with one out. A groundout got the run in and the Rays showed why they’re in the World Series. 2 - 1 Crew.

Misiorowski threw a repeat location in the 5th, 102 middle down and then 101 in the same spot. A tad uncharacteristic for the Brewers, but a battle of an at-bat later and Mesa Jr. worked himself an overdue single on a poorly located fastball.

The right-hander’s outing was absolutely full of middle-middle locations, but as Justin Verlander put it, some of the best games in history survived on fastballs over the heart of the plate. The questionable locations bring up a quick topic about Misiorowski’s future. At the Little League World Series, a young pitcher asked the second-rounder how to succeed as a pitcher.

Jacob said, “throw middle-middle and pray.” Chris Sale found that particularly funny and and said “Well that’s easy to say when you’re flinging 105.”

His Game 1 locations and this conversation made me curious. I pulled to Location+ of the last few Cy Young winners. There’s only been one since 2020 with a Location+ under 100 (which is about league average). Left-handed pitcher and now-Dodger Blake Snell took the award home in 2023 with a 96 while striking out the world with some of the league’s sharpest breakers. Misiorowski’s floor of velocity gives him a similar profile. Even if he can’t manage Greg Maddux-level locations, he’s likely to remain an ace regardless because his fastball is just so hard to hit in the zone. The floor for the young righty is already higher than most MLB ceilings.

But back to the game. Nick Martinez is cooking up the game of his life. With barely 60 pitches to start the 5th, he gave up some ugly contact to David Hamilton down the line, but he stumbled ‘round second and was doubled off along with the runner at third with a relay that will have Kevin Cash making good on his name and buying the outfield dinner. He went to the bullpen. The final line for veteran Nick Martinez:

5.00 IP / 5 Hits / 2 ER / 0 HR / 0 BB / 5 Ks

That would turn out to be the night for Miz too. With just 78 pitches, manager Pat Murphy went to his bullpen. Final line for Jacob Misiorowski, who has the NL Cy Young award wrapped up in a bag and locked underground in a vault, was:

5.00 IP / 4 Hits / 1 ER / 0 HR / 1 BB / 3 Ks

And yes, Nick Martinez struck out more batters than baseball’s newest superstar.

The Boys!

Abner Uribe is the first to continue Misiorowski’s flamethrowing. The young righty came out to punch tickets with his wicked sinker-slider combo. The Santo Domingo native got himself a nuclear strikeout and some great fielding by Contreras caught the runner at second for a super clean double play.

Steven Matz was not money for Kevin Cash (I have just endless jokes for the Rays skipper) after allowing two walks. Then again, if my PitchCom broke twice within one inning of a postseason game, I’d walk two Brewers as well. He did get out of the inning after giving the whole Rays dugout a heart attack. Doesn’t really matter, a scoreless inning is a scoreless inning.

Uribe was back for more. He had Junior Caminero flailing at a 90 mph slider upstairs to punch out the fastest bat in the league. That was the night for the first head of Milwaukee’s three-headed monster. Now it’s time for Aaron Ashby, spoiler: he was completely wipeout last night. All of the Brewers throw hard, but Ashby was the first to show off an elite breaking ball this World Series.

Steven Matz came back out for the bottom of the seventh to pay back his debts to Kevin Cash. One walk later and the righty out of Ward Melville High School is taking years off my life with these free passes. Sal Frelick lined out and David Hamilton grounded out. Cash went to his next arm, Kevin Kelly. He gave up an ugly single to Jake Bauers and the momentum is firmly toward the Brewers with runners on first and third with two outs and the score now 3 - 1. Oop. Nevermind. Groundout. Unfortunately, that’s baseball sometimes. A combined twelve runners were left on base this game.

The Brewers’ best longman came back out to keep a hold on the game. Quickly 3 - 1 and the tides were turning in the Rays favor, but two sinkers faster than some high-speed trains and nevermind to that momentum too. Mesa Jr. got burned by the heat and struck out. As did Ben Williamson after failing to figure out Ashby’s changeup. The pinch-hitter Ryan Vilade grounded out to the rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt.

Kevin Kelly came back to prove the Rays have relief arms too, but William Contreras (who has had a GAME behind the plate) hit a single over Pratt’s head to force Cash back out to go get lefty Garrett Cleavinger. A walk of Brice Turang and the Rays looked to be running out of both innings and ways to keep the Brew Crew from scoring. Luckily, they turned a massive double play to finish the inning and give the top of their order a chance against the Brewers’ best. Except it wasn’t actually double play according to the replay room in New York. The inning continues, but Cash nearly empties the bullpen by going to Cole Sulser. Caminero squeezed his glove on an amazing scoop in the shallow infield to end the inning.

Here comes the closer. With 30 saves on the year, Trevor Megill is the most aggressive fastball/curveball arm in the game. He throws flames, spins his curveball at 88 mph, and just has the closer mettle necessary to take the 9th inning. Funnily enough, there are fastballs with slower average velocity than Megill and Misiorowski’s curveball. A groundout, two base hits to make things dramatic, and two curveballs in the dirt have Contreras questioning his career choice as a catcher. This game ‘ended’ on a 5-6-4 double play that should’ve ended the Rays’ night, but Cooper Pratt was unable to keep his foot on the bag as he fielded the throw from first after a review. We continue. The center fielder DeLuca was buckled on a 90 mph knuckle-curve and then came up empty on another to end this game on something pretty impossible to overturn via challenge. He struck out.

The narrative around this game was wild, and you’ll hear plenty about it throughout the week as this World Series continues, but I want to leave you with a bit of a SmallTimeScatterPlot notion. William Contreras caught all 8.5 innings of this ballgame and did not catch a 4-seam fastball slower than 98.1 mph or a sinker slower than 96.5.

3 - 1 Brewers, and Milwaukee has Game 1.

About the Author:

This article was produced for Painting Corners by Ransom Fassett, you can find more of his work here.

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