Jacob Misiorowski doesn't really pitch so much as launch ordnance, and Thursday night in Milwaukee he turned American Family Field into a velocity exhibit. The Miz cranked a 104.5 mph fastball — reportedly the fastest pitch ever thrown by a starting pitcher in MLB history — and used it as the cherry on top of a complete-game, 1-hit, 15-strikeout shutout of the Phillies. Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Bryce Harper got fed first, and none of them had any answers.
The 105 on the gun to Schwarber, with the pitch tracker on screen to confirm it wasn't a typo.
The numbers behind the outing are the kind of thing you double-check because they look fake. 15 Ks. 1 hit. A complete game shutout. And he was still humming 103-104 in the 9th inning, which is not how human arms are supposed to work. Stretch it out and Misiorowski has 80 strikeouts and a 0.17 ERA over his last 8 starts — basically a video game save file someone left the cheats on.
Hubbs framing the night as an All-Star case, with the final-out celebration and the closing pitch graphic.
This is the part of the rookie arc where the rest of the league stops giggling and starts scouting tape with a hand over the mouth. A guy who throws 105 in the first AND the ninth, mixes in secondary stuff, and finishes his own complete games is not a fun matchup for anyone — not in June, not in October. Your buddy can keep telling you he'd foul one off. He wouldn't.
The universal bar-stool delusion meets a 105 mph heater.
Which brings us to the actual headline: Big Cat has formally added Misiorowski to the watch list. When the guy who runs the Barstool baseball ecosystem starts using the word 'issue' and dropping #Monitoring, the rookie has officially crossed from prospect curiosity into legitimate threat-to-the-sport territory. The Brewers might have something genuinely terrifying on their hands, and the rest of the NL Central — and eventually the bracket — gets to figure out what to do about a starter who throws harder than most closers in the 9th.