Jacob Misiorowski doesn't really have starts anymore, he has events. The Brewers right-hander, 6-foot-7 with a fastball that shouldn't be legal, was back on the mound Monday night against the Mets after getting scratched from a start earlier this month with arm fatigue and getting left off the All-Star Game mound despite making the team for a second straight year. Whatever caution the Brewers were exercising, it didn't show up in the radar gun.
Jacob Misiorowski melting Juan Soto's face off. 103, 104 and 104 ⛽️
The number everyone's talking about is 104. Misiorowski touched 103, then 104, then 104 again, turning Soto's first-inning at-bat into a highlight reel before most fans had finished their first beer. Soto is one of the best pure hitters alive and one of the most patient, and he simply couldn't get the barrel to any of it.
Jacob Misiorowski threw four pitches to Juan Soto in the first inning tonight and they were the four fastest pitches Juan Soto has ever faced.
That's not hyperbole, it's Statcast math: four fastballs, all in the 103-104 range, and every single one was the fastest pitch Soto had ever faced in his career. Soto has stood in against Aroldis Chapman, Jordan Hicks, Hunter Greene, all the usual triple-digit suspects. None of them ever showed him this. Misiorowski erased that entire history in one at-bat.
Most 102+ MPH Pitches Thrown In The First Inning Of An MLB Game (Entire Pitch Tracking Era): Misiorowski, 12 Misiorowski, 11 (tonight) Misiorowski, 10 Misiorowski, 10 Misiorowski, 10 Misiorowski, 10 Misiorowski, 9 Misiorowski, 6 Jordan Hicks, 6 Misiorowski, 5 Misiorowski, 5
The list isn't close. Every single entry for most 102-plus mph pitches thrown in the first inning of a game, across the entire pitch-tracking era, belongs to Misiorowski, over and over, with Jordan Hicks sneaking onto the list once just to prove other humans exist. Codify's follow-up was even more absurd: the only six pitchers ever to throw 10-plus pitches at 102-plus in a first inning are Misiorowski, Misiorowski, Misiorowski, Misiorowski, Misiorowski, and Misiorowski. He's not just breaking his own records, he's the entire record book.
None of this came out of nowhere. Misiorowski was a second-round pick out of a Missouri junior college who sat 94-96 mph as an amateur and has since turned into the hardest thrower to ever start a big league game, having touched 105.5 mph earlier this year. He entered Monday's start 10-4 with a 1.62 ERA and 167 strikeouts in just 111 2/3 innings, the kind of pitching-prospect-to-ace jump the Brewers were dreaming on when they rushed him through Triple-A. The stuff has always been video-game numbers; what's new is that it's showing up against the game's best hitters in real time.
It's also moving markets, not just jaws. PitchingNinja had Misiorowski's strikeout prop as one of his picks of the day before first pitch, and outings like this are exactly why sportsbooks keep having to adjust his over/under upward. When a guy is out there getting three swinging strikes on four pitches against a hitter who almost never swings and misses, the number is going to keep climbing until somebody actually squares him up.