No, it wasn't a dream
An Ode to Jacob Misiorowski, the young Milwaukee Titan, on the official Jacobs's Day in MLB.
Baseball, at its purest heart, is a game of stories. Stories woven between pitches and swings, between the creak of wood and the snap of leather. But every once in a while, a story comes along that defies the limits of believability, rising above the daily noise of the season and reminding us why we keep coming back to this game, year after year. Jacob Misiorowski, that tall, lanky young man whose name still makes broadcasters stumble, is writing one of those stories. And he does it with an ink composed of fire and precision, of numbers that seem plucked from a video game and performances that would belong more in the realm of legend than in the stat sheet.
It all began, as these things often begin, in silence. A debut under the spotlight against the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that has seen generations of promising pitchers pass by. But Misiorowski wasn't just another prospect. Five innings later, the batter's box line looked like a typo: 0 hits, 5 strikeouts, 4 walks. The numbers, cold and hard, didn't capture the essence of what had happened. It was the way he did it, with that fastball that cut through the air like a knife and that slider that disappeared just when hitters thought they had it figured out. Modern baseball, with all its technological advances and exhaustive analytics, hadn't seen anything like it since 1900: a rookie pitching five hitless innings.
But the truly astonishing thing wasn't that debut, but what came next. In his second outing, against the Minnesota Twins, Misiorowski took a perfect game into the seventh inning. Eighteen batters stood in front of him. Eighteen returned to the dugout without touching the ball. It took Byron Buxton, one of the fastest baserunners in the majors, working a walk to break the spell, followed by a home run by Matt Wallner that, in any other context, would have been the game's leadoff hitter. But no one talked about the home run. Everyone talked about those six innings of absolute dominance, about that cap that now travels to Cooperstown, a relic before its owner has even completed a month in the big leagues.
And then Pittsburgh arrived, and with it, Paul Skenes, this year's other young titan. It was the duel everyone was waiting for, but what they got was something different: a demonstration that Misiorowski isn't just speed, isn't just power. He's an artist. Five more innings, eight strikeouts, just two hits against, and another zero in the runs allowed column. The numbers, again, tell only part of the story: a 35% swing-and-miss rate, double the league average, a 1.13 ERA, and fewer than 30% of hard hits allowed. But what numbers can't convey is the sense of inevitability that surrounds every pitch, as if batters are participating in a play whose ending has already been written.
What makes Misiorowski different? We could talk about his fastball, which averages 99.5 mph and has touched 102.4. We could mention his 7.7-foot extension, the longest in baseball, which makes 99 mph feel like 102. We could point to his 96 mph slider, a pitch that should be “illegal.” But the real answer lies in something less tangible: in the way a kid from Crowder College, a school that had never before produced such a talent, reached the majors and acted as if he'd always belonged there. As if the mound was his natural home.
Now, as Milwaukee prepares for its next outing, there's a question hanging in the air, as palpable as the sausage smoke in the American Family Field parking lot: What comes next? Baseball is a game of adjustments, and hitters will find ways to adapt. But there's something about Misiorowski—that calmness, that precision, that blend of pure physics and poetry—that suggests this isn't a passing flash. It's the beginning of something much bigger.
Then, as I finished writing this piece, I came across an incredible story: it wasn't just Jacob Misiorowski's night. Two other “Jacobs” were making masterful pitches. Jacob deGrom and Jacob Lopez each logged seven scoreless innings, a feat that turned Wednesday into what we might call Jacob’s Day: It was the first time in MLB history that three pitchers named “Jacob” or “Jake” delivered scoreless starts on the same day:
Jacob deGrom, Rangers vs. Orioles: 7.0 IP, 0 R
Jacob Lopez, Athletics vs. Tigers: 7.0 IP, 0 R
Jacob Misiorowski, Brewers vs. Pirates: 5.0 IP, 0 R
DeGrom no-hit the bottom of the eighth inning. But Colton Cowser hit a 99 mph fastball that produced a ground ball to right field.
DeGrom stood frozen in time, while Cowser smiled at first base. Baseball is a game of probabilities. Where Cowser hit the ball, deGrom's opponents had hit just .192 xBA.
You can't predict what's going to happen, even when you know it's the Jacobs' day.
Baseball is awesome!
In the end, baseball's most enduring stories aren't those of records or statistics, but those of moments that stop us in our tracks and make us ask, “Did I just see what I think I saw?” With Misiorowski, that question is asked every five days. And for now, the answer remains the same: yes.
Yes, you saw it. And no, you weren't dreaming.
