Jacob Misiorowski has been the scariest arm in baseball this year, sitting in the triple digits deep into starts while running a 1.62 ERA, 0.76 WHIP and 167 strikeouts for a Brewers team that's leaned on him as a legitimate ace. So when he got scratched from a start against Paul Skenes and the Pirates with 'fatigue' listed as the culprit, it wasn't just a fantasy footnote. It cost him his second straight All-Star selection and put a real scare into a franchise that's built its rotation around him.
The stuff itself was never the question. Misiorowski's fastball wasn't just fast, it was absurd, and the numbers back that up.
Jacob Misiorowski threw 368 fastballs in his last 6 starts with an AVERAGE velocity of 101.6 MPH. 😮
Throwing 368 fastballs across 6 starts at an average of 101.6 mph isn't sustainable pitching, it's a stress test on a 24-year-old arm. Misiorowski had already logged 111 innings this year, sitting less than 20 frames from his career high as a pro, all while sitting on the top-shelf gear that's supposed to fade in the 5th and 6th innings instead of holding steady. Arm fatigue on that kind of workload isn't a shock, it's basically the bill coming due.
Now Milwaukee is confirming the next step, and it's a cautious one.
MLB Trade Rumors confirmed Misiorowski is back to throwing but staying out of the rotation for now.
Getting a green light to resume throwing is good news on its face, but the Brewers are still keeping him out of the series right after the All-Star break rather than rushing him back into game action. The workaround being floated has him skipping his normal turn and sliding to the end of the rotation, which would line him up to start against the Mets next Tuesday instead of pitching sooner. It's the kind of quiet roster gymnastics that only matters if you're staring at your fantasy lineup or a Brewers rotation chart, but for a team trying to protect its best arm for a stretch run, a few extra days of rest is a cheap insurance policy.
The bigger picture here is workload management for a pitcher who's thrown harder for longer than almost anyone in the league this year. Nobody's using the word 'injury list' yet, and that matters, but the fact that the Brewers are willing to eat a start against a divisional-ish opponent and hold him out of the Mets series entirely tells you they're not treating this as a one-and-done blip. Watch how he looks in his first bullpen and simulated outing before assuming he walks right back into triple digits like nothing happened.