Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Do yourself a favor and watch the whole bottom of the ninth inning of the Giants–Phillies game.
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In today’s SI:AM:
🤦♂️ March Madness expansion?
🏈 Big 12 media days
👕 MLB’s fun new trend
Dodgers no match for Miz
MLB has a new king of fastball velocity, and he just sliced through the best lineup in baseball.
Jacob Misiorowski is a 23-year-old pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers. MLB.com ranks him as the No. 21 prospect in the sport and No. 2 in the Milwaukee system (behind an 18-year-old shortstop named Jesús Made). He made his big league debut on June 12, pitching five scoreless innings in a 6–0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. Since then, he’s wowed fans with the elite velocity that made him a top prospect and mowed down opposing lineups.
Misiorowski is averaging 99.3 mph with his four-seam fastball, tied with Hunter Greene of the Cincinnati Reds for the highest average fastball velocity by a starting pitcher this season. He’s also averaging an outrageous 94.4 mph with his slider, the highest of any pitcher in the majors. No one else even comes close to matching his average slider velocity. Only two pitchers who’ve thrown at least 50 sliders this season have exceeded an average of 91 mph: Chase Petty of the Reds (91.3) and Braxton Ashcraft of the Pittsburgh Pirates (91.7).
The biggest test of Misiorowski’s young MLB career came on Tuesday night when he faced the Los Angeles Dodgers at home. And while Shohei Ohtani provided a wake-up call with a 431-foot leadoff home run, Misiorowski immediately settled down and had his best start as a big leaguer. He pitched six innings, struck out 12, allowed just four hits and only one walk. The solo shot by Ohtani was the only run he allowed.
Misiorowski eventually got his revenge on Ohtani, striking him out in his next at-bat. He also struck out Mookie Betts twice and Freddie Freeman three times. The performance earned rave reviews from the future Hall of Famer who started opposite Misiorowski.
“That was super impressive,” Clayton Kershaw said. “That was unbelievable. It was really special. I mean, everything. Obviously the velo, but he’s got four pitches, commands the ball and made it—I mean, I don’t know how you hit that, honestly.”
Ohtani was also complimentary.
“Just really good stuff,” he said through an interpreter. “Aggressive in the zone. But what really stood out to me was his command and control.”
Command has always been Misiorowski’s biggest concern. He averaged 5.4 walks per nine innings in 68 appearances in the minors and issued 10 walks over 19 ⅔ innings in his first four starts in the bigs. Struggles with his control have led scouts to wonder whether his long-term role will be as a starter or if he’s better suited for a late-inning relief role. The fact that he was as dominant as he was on Tuesday against a lineup as good as Los Angeles’s bodes well for his future as a starter, though.
It isn’t just the velocity that makes Misiorowski so unhittable. His curveball and changeup both have above-average break and have been effective put-away pitches for him. He predominantly throws fastballs (53.5% of his pitches) and sliders (28.7%), but 15 of his 33 strikeouts have come on curveballs and changeups.
The other main factor that makes him dangerous is his ability to extend and release the ball closer to the plate. At 6'7", 197 pounds, Misiorowski has the long arms and legs necessary to drive off the mound and reduce the distance the ball has to travel. He ranks in the 99th percentile in extension this season, meaning not only does he throw harder than almost any other pitcher, but he also reduces the amount of time the hitter has to react to the pitch by releasing the ball closer to the plate than almost any other pitcher. By comparison, Greene (the Reds pitcher tied with Misiorowski for highest fastball velocity by a starter) only ranks in the 62nd percentile in extension, even though he’s 6'5". Misiorowski releases the ball nearly a full foot closer to the plate than Green does. When the ball is traveling at 99 mph, that foot matters.
The Brewers are going to need a lot more starts from Misiorowski like Tuesday’s as they attempt to keep pace with the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central race. They’re now 13–5 in their last 18 games and have cut their deficit in the division from 6.5 games to 2.5. The Dodgers, meanwhile, have now lost five in a row after being swept by the Houston Astros over the weekend and have seen their lead in the division shrink from nine games to five. They could have a chance to get revenge against Misiorowski after the All-Star break, though, when the Brewers come to Los Angeles for three games beginning July 18.
WNBA All-Star Rosters Set
Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier participated in the WNBA All-Star draft on Tuesday night, fulfilling their respective roles as team captains and filling out the rosters for Team Clark and Team Collier for the July 19 game in Indianapolis.
Team Clark
Starter: Caitlin Clark (captain)
Starter: Aliyah Boston (first overall pick)
Starter: Sabrina Ionescu (third overall pick)
Starter: A'ja Wilson (fifth overall pick)
Starter: Satou Sabally (seventh overall pick)
Reserve: Kelsey Mitchell (second overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Gabby Williams (fourth overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Sonia Citron (sixth overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Kiki Iriafen (eighth overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Jackie Young (10th overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Kayla Thornton (12th overall reserve pick)
Team Collier
Starter: Napheesa Collier (captain)
Starter: Breanna Stewart (second overall pick)
Starter: Allisha Gray (fourth overall pick)
Starter: Nneka Ogwumike (sixth overall pick)
Starter: Paige Bueckers (eighth overall pick)
Reserve: Courtney Williams (first overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Skylar Diggins (third overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Angel Reese (fifth overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Alyssa Thomas (seventh overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Kelsey Plum (ninth overall reserve pick)
Reserve: Rhyne Howard (11th overall reserve pick)
The best of Sports Illustrated
- As the NCAA prepares to potentially expand the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to as many as 76 teams this week, Pat Forde decries the idea as “a tipping-point scam.”
- Bryan Fischer reports from Big 12 media days near Dallas, where the conference argued that its competitive parity should land multiple teams in the College Football Playoff.
- Stephanie Apstein reports that MLB players are increasingly embracing a trend of wearing custom, witty T‑shirts as a playful, unofficial fashion trend that blatantly bends MLB’s uniform rules while generating viral marketing buzz.
- Matt Verderame continues SI’s 32 teams in 32 days series with the Lions, who are still trying to reach the Super Bowl for the first time.
- In Daniel Flick’s 2024 NFL re-draft, there’s a new No. 1 pick, Bo Nix climbs six spots and Brian Thomas Jr. leapfrogs Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers as the top wideout.
- Tim Capurso argues in his latest “Fact or Fiction” column that, despite Paul Skenes’s stellar season, Zack Wheeler—not Skenes—deserves the National League’s starting nod at this summer’s All‑Star Game.
The top five…
… things I saw last night:
5. Brandon Young’s immaculate inning for the Orioles.
4. The loud clap of thunder that caused a minor league pitcher to balk in a run.
3. The wild sequence that led to Benji Kikanović’s go-ahead goal for the San Jose Earthquakes in extra time against Austin FC. Austin later tied it up on a penalty kick and went on to win in a shootout to advance to the semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup.
2. Lawrence Butler’s leadoff inside-the-park home run, followed by an over-the-fence homer in his next at-bat.
1. Patrick Bailey’s walk-off inside-the-park homer for the Giants. Some fun facts about the play, via YES Network researcher James Smyth: It’s the first walk-off inside-the-park homer since Tyler Naquin in 2016, the first such walk-off that came while the team was trailing since Ángel Pagán in ’13 and just the third inside-the-park walk-off homer by a catcher in MLB history. The other two were in 1907 and 1926.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Flamethrowing Brewers Phenom Foils Dodgers.
