Jacob Misiorowski’s second-half routine is going to look a little different, and the Brewers made that clear in Sunday’s 8-3 win over the Mets at American Family Field.
After a 13-day layoff, the 23-year-old right-hander was on a planned shorter leash, and Milwaukee pulled him after four innings and 65 pitches. Misiorowski said he felt like he didn’t have his legs underneath him as the outing wore on, and manager Pat Murphy said the Brewers saw enough to make the call before things got any messier.
“We probably could have let him go further if his delivery and his legs felt great,” Murphy said. “I think he was a little bit out of it.
The long layoff affected his delivery and everything else. I think it was important to notice that and get him out of there.”
Misiorowski still opened the day the way he usually does, bringing heat from the jump. His first fastball was clocked at 102.2 mph, and he reached 104.0 mph to Juan Soto one batter later. But the velocity and the command didn’t hold up as the game moved along.
“He didn’t throw a commanded heater past the second inning,” Murphy said. “He was coming off his legs and getting stuck and couldn’t get out of it. Concerning.”
Said Misiorowski: “I felt halfway decent. Good enough.”
The Brewers are treating his workload as one of the biggest issues of the second half. Murphy said before the game that it’s been a major point of discussion inside the dugout, with the staff weighing everything from mechanics to strength testing as it tries to keep Misiorowski healthy for the postseason.
“That’s a big discussion,” Murphy said prior to the game. “It’s a big topic.
They’re all sorts of concern, planning, discussion, sidebar, mechanics, biomechanics, strength testing. Thus the reason for the layoff.
Now how do we ramp it back up?”
For now, Milwaukee appears more interested in shorter starts than in skipping him altogether. The idea is to keep Misiorowski in rhythm while still controlling his innings, almost like a spring-training buildup.
Misiorowski said he expects to be back to full-go “Next week,” adding, “That would be my guess, that quick of a turnaround. Four innings [today], next one hopefully more.”
He’s already at 115 innings this season, which is 25 shy of his career-high when the playoffs are included. The Brewers are fine with him blowing past that number, but they’re also determined to handle him carefully before October.
They know what’s attached to his right arm.
“It’s being mindful of when a guy’s not right,” Murphy said. “You see a guy’s delivery, he's got a lot of arms and legs out there.
His stuff wasn’t great and he’s grinding through it. That’s when things happen, when your legs aren’t underneath you and you don’t have that perfect delivery.”
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