MILWAUKEE, Wis. — It took Jacob Misiorowski exactly one throw to put his name in the World Series record book. The Brewers right-hander began Friday night’s opener against Tampa Bay with a four-seam fastball clocked at 103.5 mph by Statcast, the hardest pitch thrown in a Fall Classic since pitch tracking started in 2008.
The offering to Rays leadoff hitter Yandy Díaz sailed high for ball one. The ballpark scoreboard flashed 103.4, a tenth slower than the official tracking reading.
The old record of 103.2 mph belonged to Aroldis Chapman, who reached it closing out Game 2 for the Cubs in 2016. Among starting pitchers, the previous Series best had been 101.1 mph from Noah Syndergaard of the Mets in 2015, a mark Misiorowski blew past several times in the first inning alone.
The 24-year-old leaned almost entirely on heat early, opening with ten straight fastballs. He finished with dozens of triple-digit pitches, more than any pitcher has thrown in a single Series game in the tracking era, and three that topped 103.
Raw speed did not translate into his usual strikeout totals. Misiorowski, who topped all of baseball with 252 strikeouts and carried a 1.80 ERA in the regular season, fanned only three Rays. Tampa Bay hitters fouled off a steady stream of his offerings, and his spin rate dipped late in a year in which he has logged 188 innings, up from just over 141 last season.
He still did his job, holding Tampa Bay to one run on four hits and a walk over five innings to earn his first playoff victory as a starting pitcher as Milwaukee won 3-2. The only damage came in the fourth when Junior Caminero lined a 101.5 mph fastball over the center fielder for a double, setting up a run-scoring groundout.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy pulled him after 78 pitches rather than let the top of the Rays order see him a third time. Two years ago Misiorowski was pitching at Double-A Biloxi.
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