MILWAUKEE — If Ke’Bryan Hayes’ swinging bunt could have left his bat a bit harder, or veered toward Jacob Misiorowski on the mound, this could have been so much simpler.
Misiorowski could have escaped his bases-loaded introduction to big-league bullpen duty, gone on to a tidy outing against the Reds on that final Saturday of the regular season, and been all systems go as part of the Brewers’ bullpen in the National League Division Series.
But that would have been too easy. Little has come easily for the Brewers this season, nor for Misiorowski since the 23-year-old rookie’s surprise trip to the All-Star Game in July, when he was one of the hottest pitchers in the Majors. Two and a half months later, he is his team’s greatest unknown.
Where does Misiorowski fit in Milwaukee’s October plans?
“Wherever they put me,” he said.
Based on conversations with Brewers officials and coaches, Misiorowski does fit somewhere, and they all expect him to be included on the NLDS roster when it is released on Saturday morning.
Why take that risk, given Misiorowski’s 6.06 ERA since the start of August? Part of the answer lies with his triple-digit fastball, and the way power tends to play in the postseason.
“I think we need that,” Brewers associate pitching and strategy coach Jim Henderson said. “We lost Shelby Miller [to an elbow injury] and we don’t have a ton of right-handed options, you know? I think he could pitch in an important situation if you need a punchout in an important situation. I mean, 103 mph is going to play.”
That kind of power was Misiorowski’s calling card when he arrived from Triple-A Nashville for a June 12 start against the Cardinals as Milwaukee’s top pitching prospect and one of MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects. For a time, it looked like he’d been severely underrated.
The day before, Kershaw indicated he wasn’t familiar with Misiorowski’s work. Twelve strikeouts later, Kershaw was singing a different tune.
“I know him now, huh?” Kershaw said afterward.
Instead, Misiorowski slumped to the finish. A critical turning point came on July 28 in his second start after the break, when Misiorowski was hit on the right shin by a comebacker from Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki and landed on the injured list.
When he returned, Misiorowski pitched to a 6.23 ERA over his next seven starts, capped by 77 pitches for 11 outs in a Sept. 19 loss to the Cardinals in St. Louis. Afterward, manager Pat Murphy said it’s unlikely that Misiorowski would start in the NLDS.
“He had such a high high,” Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook said. “Are the expectations that he was going to do that every time? I don’t think that’s fair. But he’s somewhere in the middle. Can we get to the high part of that middle with him in the bullpen? I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Which brought Misiorowski to the final Saturday of the regular season, when he walked to the bullpen with the rest of Milwaukee’s relievers as Robert Gasser warmed up for what was scheduled to be an abbreviated start. Misiorowski knew he would pitch that night, but he didn’t know whether the call would come at the start of a clean inning.
There had been extensive conversations about that between coaches and front-office officials. Relief wasn’t entirely foreign to Misiorowski; he had a 1.84 ERA in 12 relief outings for Triple-A Nashville down the stretch in 2024, with 19 strikeouts and even one save in 14 2/3 innings.
Still, there was a faction of Brewers officials who believed a clean inning would be best. That’s not what Misiorowski got. Instead, he inherited just about the messiest situation imaginable: Bases loaded in the third inning, two outs and Hayes due to hit for Cincinnati with Milwaukee trying to keep it a 1-0 deficit.
“Some people say, ‘Why would you do that? Put him in a clean inning! Give him a soft landing!’” Murphy said. “What part of the playoffs is going to be a soft landing? Even if it’s a clean inning, right? There’s no soft landing. So I made the decision to move that way.”
It didn’t work out. Hayes’ swinging bunt settled in no-man’s land to the third-base side of the mound for an infield single. Then, Misiorowski missed wildly with two straight 101 mph fastballs on the way to walking Matt McLain to make it 3-0. He then fell into a 2-0 hole against TJ Friedl before the Cincinnati leadoff man cleared the bases with a double and an error by Brewers left fielder Isaac Collins. Just like that, it was 6-0.
Misiorowski would go on to deliver scoreless fourth and fifth innings, but the damage had been done. The Brewers went on to lose, 7-4.
“We were going to get one chance to do this before the playoffs,” Henderson said. “So we went into it thinking, whatever happens, happens. We’ll take Gasser to what we think his pitch count should be that day and we’ll go Miz next. If it’s clean, it’s clean. If it’s dirty, it’s dirty. We talked about it and decided, ‘Let’s see what this looks like.’”
Coaches had discussed the possibilities with Misiorowski during the Brewers previous series in San Diego and he not only indicated he was on board with any situation, according to Henderson, but he told the coaches, “Bring it on.”
“Credit to him,” Henderson said. “He was willing to face this head-on.”
A day after the outing went sideways, Murphy stood by the decision.
“It could have worked out,” Murphy said. “It could have been a big upside for Miz, right? He gets the rollover ground ball, and if it’s not a swinging bunt and we throw him out, Miz can feel great about it and he’s accomplished something. It didn’t work out that way.
“Either way, the outing will help him grow. And that’s the key. So everybody that says, ‘Why didn’t you give him a soft landing!’ — they don’t know a lot about baseball.”
The Brewers looked at the positives. Before the swinging bunt derailed him, Misiorowski threw strikes.
Never mind what came next. For Henderson, “it was a good sign.”
But Misiorowski has to continue throwing strikes.
And he has to keep his wits about him if something unlucky happens.
“Well that’s the thing, there’s always an exit strategy in the bullpen, right?” Henderson said. “We could have got him out of there, but we wanted to maintain the length. That situation [against the Reds] might not be indicative of what you’re going to see. If he gets into trouble, we can get the next guy in.”
Henderson, though, sees this as an opportunity. Assuming he makes the roster, Misiorowski could be deployed either as a multi-inning arm in the middle of games (even in the relief outing, he threw 58 pitches), or as a hammer at the end of an inning when a strikeout is required. The club’s plans are unknown at this point.
“Guys have to step up and do things that might feel uncomfortable,” Henderson said. “That’s what the playoffs are about.”
“Sometimes,” Hook added, “different roles kind of like, charge you up. It energizes you. I think this is really going to help him.
If he makes the roster, Misiorowski will get a chance to write a new ending to his rookie season, and to add to the lessons he’s already learned.
“The biggest one is just keep moving forward,” Misiorowski said. “Be there for the guys who are around you, and they’re going to be there for you when it gets tough. So just keep going.”
