MILWAUKEE - The Brewers spent 11 days hunting for answers on Jacob Misiorowski’s fastball, and they believe they found them just in time for World Series Game 1 tonight.
The issue has shown up in the postseason. Misiorowski’s induced vertical break, spin rate and whiff rate on his heater have all dipped in his two playoff starts. He didn’t get through five innings against either the Padres or the Dodgers, and his fastball produced the two worst whiff rates of his career in those outings, at 13.8% and 18.5%, with a minimum of 45 fastballs thrown.
After those starts, Misiorowski used the Brewers’ 11 days off to throw a simulated game and work a bullpen session. During that work, pitching coach Chris Hook and pitching coordinator Jim Henderson believe they identified two mechanical problems that were stripping life and “hop” from the pitch.
One part of the fix traces back to what helped turn Misiorowski into a breakout arm in the first place. He added 25 to 30 pounds in his lower half, giving him more stability and more power. But in October, he has been sinking too deeply into his legs before his push-off, getting too low and becoming more “under” the baseball at release.
That deeper “drop and drive” approach also lowered his release point, which took some ride off the pitch. His release point sat at 5.2 feet above the ground during the regular season, then dropped to 5.09 feet in October, the lowest mark of any month in his career.
The other adjustment is about tempo. Misiorowski has been trying to control his emotions and avoid getting too amped up in the postseason, but that has slowed him down.
Hook and Henderson have urged him to speed up his body and lean into the adrenaline instead of holding it back. From the time he lifts his left foot to the time he plants it, his delivery has stretched from about 0.8 seconds to 1.1 seconds.
If the Brewers’ read is right, the version that shows up in World Series Game 1 should look different: faster through the motion, more emotional, and with a fastball that again gets the late movement they’ve come to expect.
The numbers give the challenge a clear target. Misiorowski had only four whiffs on his fastball against the Padres and five against the Dodgers. If the pitch is back where Hook and Henderson think it should be, they expect a much bigger swing-and-miss total - at least 10, which is his median for the year.
And the moment comes with extra weight. Misiorowski is carrying ace responsibilities in his first full season, and on Friday at 24 years and 203 days old, he will become the youngest pitcher to start three Game 1s in one postseason, topping Cole Hamels of the 2008 Phillies (24-300) and Madison Bumgarner of the 2014 Giants (25-081).
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