MILWAUKEE (AP) — Jacob Misiorowski says he isn’t particularly concerned about the cramping that has caused him to leave two of his last three starts.
Misiorowski came out for the eighth inning Wednesday but left with a cramp in his right quadriceps after throwing one warmup pitch in the Milwaukee Brewers’ 3-1 loss to the San Diego Padres.
He had a no-hit bid through 5 1/3 innings in an 8-1 victory at Washington on May 1 before departing that game with a right hamstring cramp.
“Probably the exact same, but it was the quad this time instead of the hamstring,” Misiorowski said. “Nothing we haven’t seen before, so it’ll be fine. I’m ready to go.”
Cramping appears to be the only significant obstacle for the hard-throwing 24-year-old right-hander, who hasn’t allowed a run in his last three outings.
“He puts so much into it. … We have people here to get it under control,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “I don’t think it’s a concern.”
Misiorowski struck out 10 and allowed four hits and no walks, leaving with a 1-0 lead. The Padres rallied to win on Gavin Sheets’ three-run homer off Abner Uribe with two outs in the ninth inning.
That came five nights after Misiorowski struck out 11 and allowed two hits and two walks in a 6-0 victory over the New York Yankees. He had eight strikeouts and two walks against the Nationals.
He has struck out at least eight batters in each of his last five starts to tie Ben Sheets for the second-longest such streak in Brewers history. Corbin Burnes owns the franchise record with seven straight games of at least eight strikeouts in his Cy Young Award-winning season of 2021.
Misiorowski throws the hardest of any starting pitcher in the big leagues.
Against the Yankees, Misiorowski had 10 pitches go at least 103 mph and had three pitches of 103.6 mph, the highest velocity any starter has reached since pitch tracking began in 2008.
Misiorowski threw 40 pitches of 100 mph or higher on Wednesday, his third straight game with 40 or more. He struck out Nick Castellanos with a 103.2-mph fastball on his 93rd and final pitch.
New York Yankees slugger and three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge said that the extension Misiorowski gets with his 6-foot-7 frame makes his fastball particularly difficult to hit.
“He’s almost basically releasing it in the catcher’s glove,” Judge said when the Yankees were in Milwaukee. “You see some guys who throw 103, but you get a little bit more time. A guy like that, where he’s almost dropping it in the catcher’s mitt, it makes for a tough day.”
Misiorowski leads major league pitchers with 80 strikeouts. His performance Wednesday lowered his ERA to 2.12.
“I honestly didn’t feel like I had my best stuff,” he said.
He diversified his approach by throwing a slider about 30% of the time Wednesday. He entered this game having used the slider on only 22.6% of his pitches.
“That was just the game plan going in,” Misiorowski said. “They saw something back there that they thought the slider would work better.”
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