Through two postseason starts, Jacob Misiorowski has been just good enough.
As Misiorowski opens the first World Series in Milwaukee in 44 years on Oct. 22 with Game 1 against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Milwaukee Brewers will need him to be better than that. They will need him to be, well, Jacob Misiorowski.
The likely National League Cy Young winner has had to grind through games against the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres to this point, allowing three runs on nine hits and four walks in 8 ⅓ innings. Good enough to give the Brewers a chance to win, no doubt – and they have, going 2-0 in his starts so far – but not quite the dominance the 24-year-old right-hander can showcase when he’s at his best.
“I feel like the first one might have been a little under what I expected, but the second one was pretty much right where I wanted to be,” Misiorowski said of his playoff outings to this point. “I think I finally figured it out in Game 2 of not getting off my end goal and doing what I need to do to succeed and not trying to play their game. So I think I need to do more of that.”
By “their game,” Misiorowski means the game plan of both opponents he’s seen so far, which has been quite evident in the at-bats against him. The Padres and Dodgers wanted to fight off as many pitches as possible, willing to sacrifice slug for long at-bats and putting the ball in play.
Take a wild guess as to what the Rays are going to try to do, too.
“I bet Tampa Bay is going to do pretty much the same thing,” Misiorowski said.
Through two games, Misiorowski has had 50 pitches fouled off out of 182, a rate of 27.5%. During the regular season, only 18.2% of his pitches resulted in a foul ball.
“He hasn't been as crisp,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “I don't think people are up there thinking it's going to be 104, and I think they're elated if it's anything less than that. They're obviously looking at an area. They're trying to exploit everything. He's exposed, like all these guys get at some point. He's exposed.
“So they're going to attack a certain way, and we're going to try to counter that attack the way we counter it. It's all about Miz and his health and his mental state, and it's not easy.”
It hasn’t only been the approach of the opposing offenses that have neutralized the Brewers’ unicorn ace.
Misiorowski’s pitches aren’t quite operating with the same shape or zip as they do when he is at his best. His four-seamer has averaged 14.0 inches of induced vertical break, which is down from his season average of 15.3 inches. Less “rise” to the fastball has played a critical role in batters getting part of the bat on it rather than swinging under it as happens when Misiorowski is at his best.
“I know we’ve seen the vert down a bit, which helps with the foul balls,” said Brewers pitching coach Jim Henderson. “Working hard this past week in his bullpen sessions on getting back to the spot.”
Misiorowski loves the big moments, but perhaps he’s loved the moment a bit too much, the Brewers think.
“Some of it is nerves,” Henderson said. “He admitted he was pretty nervous the first couple games and when that happens the body moves slower and you get longer and you’re not behind the ball as well as you should be.”
Misiorowski threw a bullpen Oct. 21 that Henderson and company saw as encouraging. They spent the week of downtime after the National League Championship Series to really focus on Misiorowski’s mechanics to make sure his body is moving powerfully down the mound.
“As a unit here our immediate thoughts don’t go to grips and stuff like that,” Henderson said. “Where most analytic teams would probably go to the grip and how the hand is moving on the ball. We go to mechanics. We go to, like, is your hand getting away from your head? Are you getting a longer arm path? Are you moving slower?”
Could a longer layoff help Misiorowski out? Not only were there eight days between games to work on mechanics, but Misiorowski will be pitching on 11 days’ rest. That is reminiscent of the short break the Brewers gave their star at the end of the first half of the season, when he went 12 days between starts while dealing with some fatigue. When he returned, he got 12 whiffs on 21 fastball swings, averaged 101.2 mph with the heater and had 16 inches of vertical break on average.
It’s possible that Misiorowski is experiencing some fatigue in his body now, too. He will tell you he feels great, but considering he’s thrown more than 40 innings more than any year prior, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for his body to be running on fumes.
“I think we all know that these guys are at the end of the season, so there’s fatigue,” Henderson said. “Anytime you can rest and refresh the body and make sure the legs are feeling good, it’s always a plus. And then you’re able to get good work in on the side sessions, where if he had pitched in [NLCS} Game 5, it’s on four days rest a lot. Very fortunate to have some rest here.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Can Jacob Misiorowski get back to his next level for the World Series?