This is one outlet's own report from CBS Sports — the article as it was filed.
AIPROPX ReportCBS Sports · 3h ago
Inside the fastest show in baseball: What it's like to watch Brewers sensation Jacob Misiorowski
MILWAUKEE – The greatest show on the sand, silt, and clay of the pitcher's mound these days is Milwaukee Brewers right-handed force of nature Jacob Misiorowski . The 24-year-old is not just the best pitcher in the world in 2026, he's also the most viscerally overwhelming pitcher in the world.
Misiorowski on Friday at the Brewers' home yard squared off against Chris Sale , one of the best at his craft and a pitcher some 13 years Misiorowski's senior. It was not only a clash of aces, it was also a duel between two of the best teams in baseball. The 40,130 in attendance -- marking the 16th Milwaukee sell-out of the season (and this one on weekday afternoon) – surely knew it meant a little more than most August games do.
Beyond the importance of the outcome -- Milwaukee won 2-1 -- and what it meant to a Brewers team trying to fend off the Cubs and secure top seed throughout the postseason and a Braves team angling to secure a bye, it was a Misiorowski start. No matter the opponent, that's appointment viewing these days. If you were watching, here's what you saw.
Working from the first base side of the rubber, Misiorowski opens with a 101.8 mph fastball to greet Braves leadoff hitter Ronald Acuña Jr. It's a ball inside. Misiorowski will go to the fastball with all five pitches that Acuña sees -- all triple digits, and four of them out of the zone. Acuña flicks away the only strike, one on the outside sliver of the zone, and works a walk.
With most starting pitchers, we'd note that they'd now be working from the stretch. Misirowski, though, is unusual among starting pitchers in that he always works from the stretch. Perhaps, with his long levers and maxed-out stuff, keeping it simple is the soundest approach. It's certainly impossible to argue with the results, just as it's impossible to argue with the Brewers' faculties when it comes to pitching development.
On Misiorowski's sixth pitch of the game, he finally departs from the fastball and presents Drake Baldwin with a 98-mph cutter. Two offerings later, he goes to the slider for the first time on Friday. It's not his fully gassed-up slider. He's touched 98 with his slider this season, although when his slide-piece is at those levels, it might be more of a cutter than a true slider. If you call it a true slider, then Misiorowski has thrown 49 of the 50 fastest sliders on record. Is a 98-mph slider more impressive than his occasional 104-mph fastball? It might be, if, of course, it's a slider in the genuine sense and not a cutter or the infelicitously named slutter. We know that his fastball is a fastball, though, so it's fine to direct your amazement there, as you likely already were.
Misiorowski gets his first strikeout of the game on a 101.6 mph fastball that catches the outside edge at Baldwin's expense.
Speaking of the typical purpose of pitching from the stretch -- to hold runners -- preventing the steal is a skill of Misiorowski's that gets overlooked. On that note:
This was a delayed steal on the part of Acuña, so the out was more an instance of poor decision-making running headlong into William Contreras ' powerful throwing arm. Contreras is among the game's best when it comes to controlling the running game, but let's note that Misiorowski has allowed only one stolen base this season – the fewest among qualifiers alongside Ryan Weathers .
Not long after, Misiorowski ends the frame with a backfoot slider to Matt Olson that he whiffs on. He throws the slider about three times as often to right-handed batters, but, as Olson will surely attest, he can back-foot it to left-handed batters as a putaway pitch. This one was 91.8 mph, so, yes, it's a true slider.
It seems like the merest matter of time before Misiorowski eventually authors a no-hitter, but it won't be today. With two out, Mauricio Dubón lines an 0-2 fastball to right for a single. At 103.1 mph, the pitch is Misiorowski's hastiest of the day and the first pitch we've seen enter what's informally known as "Miz Velo Country."
It's not particularly fair to throw that hard as a starting pitcher, and what makes it even less fair from the Misiorowski standpoint is how close to the plate he releases the ball. The 6-foot-7 Misiorowski gets, on average, an absurd 7.6 feet of extension off the rubber and toward the plate. That puts him in the 99th percentile in extension among big league hurlers.
Take a look at Misiorowski's first inning landing spot, as amateurishly captured from the American Family Field press box:
And here's how it looked in the fourth inning after Sale has put his spikes on the mound:
As you can see, the 6-foot-6 Sale had been planting well behind Misirowski. Sale gets his six-and-a-half feet in extension, on average, and that puts him in the 59th percentile, but thanks to his crossfire delivery he doesn't get down the hill as much as Misiorowski does.
That's where the notion of effective velocity comes into play. The hitter obviously has vanishingly little time to react to Misiorowski's fastball, and because he releases the ball so close to the hitter, it's even less time than you might think. Misiorowski this season has averaged 100.6 mph with his fastball, but his average effective velocity -- meaning what the pitch feels like to the hitter -- is 103.1 mph thanks to his elite extension. He has a high leg lift, with the knee basically coming in line with the jersey lettering when he's going into his delivery, and that sets him up to stride deep toward the plate.
When we talk about Miz's fastball, we'll often couch it in terms like "fastest by a starting pitcher" when talking about Aroldis Chapman in historical terms or Mason Miller on the contemporary front. Miller indeed does best Misiorowski on the radar gun, with an average four-seamer of 101.5 mph. In effective velocity, though, Miller comes in at 102.4 mph because he gets less extension than Misiorowski. Miller may throw harder, but most hitters would probably tell you that Miz seems like he...
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