Jacob Misiorowski has spent the season making hitters miserable, and MLB.com is still treating him like the standard everyone else has to catch.
The Milwaukee Brewers ace held onto the No. 1 spot in the latest Starting Pitcher Power Rankings, marking his seventh straight week at the top. With the regular season winding down, Cam Schlittler, Chris Sale and Yoshinobu Yamamoto rounded out the top four.
The case for Misiorowski is pretty simple: the numbers are loud. In 29 starts, the 24-year-old is 15-5 with a 1.86 ERA, a 0.80 WHIP and 247 strikeouts across 169.1 innings. He also sits first among qualified starters in opponent batting average at .180.
That strikeout total is the one number worth watching most closely now. Misiorowski has one start left to reach 250 punchouts, and if he gets there, he’d become the fourth pitcher in the last six years to hit that mark. Spencer Strider, Gerrit Cole and Garrett Crochet are the only others in that group.
Behind him, the race is crowded with real competition. Schlittler has emerged as a serious threat to the Brewers star’s claim on the top spot. The Yankees rookie owns a 1.94 ERA, which ranks second among qualified starters, and he has quickly become one of the American League’s biggest stories.
Sale has been every bit as sharp for Atlanta. The 37-year-old recorded his 200th strikeout Wednesday for the ninth time in his career, passing Steve Carlton for the second-most 200-strikeout seasons by a left-hander. Only Randy Johnson has more.
Yamamoto made a big jump as well, moving from No. 8 to No. 4. The Dodgers right-hander entered Wednesday with a 1.98 ERA over 10 starts since the All-Star break and a 0.87 WHIP on the season.
Even with that group pressing, Misiorowski is still the one setting the pace. He’s paired elite production with the kind of velocity that makes radar guns look slightly nervous, and he has done it across a full season, not just in flashes.
He gets one more regular-season start before October. At this point, he’s already built the résumé. The postseason just gives him another chance to keep making hitters regret walking into the box.
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