Never seen before in American baseball. 24-year-old Jacob ‘The Miz’ Misiorowski crushed the competition last weekend with a historic performance and throws of over 168 km/h. But behind this ‘flamethrower’ of the Milwaukee Brewers lies a down-to-earth, almost naive anti-hero, who is well on his way to becoming the best ever.
MLB followers in the US were short of superlatives after the unprecedented demonstration of the 24-year-old American. Exactly one year after his debut at the highest level, Jacob Misiorowski left the star team from Philadelphia completely without a chance during the 6-0 victory for nine innings with only 95 pitches, of which he threw 58 – an improvement on his own record – above 100 miles per hour (160 km/h).
The 2.01 meter tall pitcher, whose Polish last name in the US sounds like Mizzerauskiis a unique talent. His mother calls him Jacob, the only one, because to the rest of the world he goes through life as The Miz a nickname he already received in the minors, where his fame already preceded him. For Brewers manager Pat Murphy, former Dutch national team coach, he is Forrest Gump.
Because running is the passion and life of the film character played by Tom Hanks The Miz nothing more than continuously firing cannonballs. When he was recently asked to elaborate on this, after an almost shy laugh he gave a Forrest Gump-like answer: “That’s what I do.”
“He is a kind of Forrest Gump if you know what I mean,” Murphy said last Friday about the special character of his pupil. “He is incredibly real and naive in many ways, and that is beautiful. He just goes for it.”
Misiorowski saw the humor in that comparison and posted a photo on Instagram a day later with his head on Forrest Gump’s body. They are not made much more authentic than the man who looks like an antihero and the boy next door could have been. The Miz may now be a superstar, but he is averse to nonsense.
They soon realized in America that he would become a special attraction. Misiorowski was named to the All Star Game last year after just five games in the MLB. Never before has anyone received that honor so early in their career. It raised eyebrows at some clubs – including the Phillies. What had that young guy actually shown in those few games?
But The Miz fully lived up to its reputation. Although he suffered a small setback after his lightning start last year, in his second season there is no limit for the man who grew up near Kansas City. And he made that very clear to his previous critics.
Rare lack of decay
Phillies home run king Kyle Schwarber went first on Friday with a fastball of 104.5 miles per hour (168.2 km/h), the fastest pitch thrown by a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball history. Equally unique was that he continued to fire his cannonballs tirelessly: his last of 15 strikeouts (an MLB season record) was measured at 103.1 miles per hour. A rare lack of decay.
Misiorowski threw 460 balls over 100 mph in 14 games this season. All other pitchers in the MLB together reach 410… The fact that he is able to combine those speeds with precision (of the 95 balls on Friday, 74 were strikes) makes him almost untouchable. His ERA (earned run average) over his last eight games is 0.17. That means he only gave up one run in all those games. Never seen in the MLB.
Official as it should be complete game shutout Friday may not have been called a perfect game (9 innings without a walk or single against) – Schwarber hit one single – but the experts agreed that they had never seen such a dominant performance. This was perfection.
The Miz was afterwards mentioned in the same breath as greats such as Greg Maddux, Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. He hasn’t gotten that far yet. But if he keeps this up, he’ll pass all those Hall of Famers. “This kid is on his way”Murphy said. “It doesn’t get any better.”