Jacob Misiorowski, the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander, carried a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts into October, and Game 5 looked like his coronation until right leg trouble intervened at Tropicana Field with the Brewers leading 4-0.
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The first word came on X, where a Brewers beat reporter, Curt Hogg, wrote during Game 5, “Jacob Misiorowski is coming out of the game after 5 1/3 innings with the athletic trainer. He may have cramped.”
The concern carried weight because the script was familiar. Misiorowski had worked 5 2/3 scoreless innings on two hits on October 28 with a 4-0 lead.
That leg trouble had a history. Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook addressed it in mid-May at a Milwaukee media session, per MLB.com.
“I think it’s just an engine that runs really, really hot. And that engine starts from the ground up,” Hook said.
The engine comparison holds up on the stat sheet. Misiorowski left a May 1 start against the Washington Nationals with a right hamstring cramp after 5 1/3 hitless innings, then exited May 13 against the San Diego Padres with a right quad cramp after seven scoreless frames and 10 strikeouts, both times while dominating.
In Game 5, he allowed two hits and a walk, and reliever JoJo Romero got the final out of the sixth, leaving the Brewers nine outs from their first title.
Getting that far took a reset. Milwaukee sat three outs from a title in Game 4 before Rays infielder Ben Williamson’s walk-off single in the 12th made it 4-3, and Misiorowski answered with zeros.
That faith had numbers behind it. Misiorowski went 16-5, is the presumptive National League Cy Young Award winner, and entered Game 5 with a 2.13 career postseason ERA across six outings.
The velocity held up all night, but the footing did not.
Jacob Misiorowski Battles Tropicana Field Mound
The calf was only half of the night’s trouble because the Tropicana Field mound fought Misiorowski from the start. Eight pitches in, he slipped on a fastball to Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, called time, and dug chunks of clay out of his landing spot.
The complaints stretch back months. Misiorowski battled a hard mound for much of an Aug. 2 start in Anaheim and called it “probably one of the worst mounds I’ve had.”
Twenty-five days later at Citi Field,, he slid around in the rain, and his next outing at Wrigley Field brought more frustration. Hook then banned mound talk, and the issue stayed quiet until October. His 6-foot-7 frame and long stride land him on loose clay beneath the top layer.
In Game 5, the Rays grounds crew raked, watered, and tamped the dirt before almost every inning he pitched, and a warm-up slip before the second went viral. Tropicana Field’s mound had already needed repairs one night earlier when pitcher Cam Booser worked in Game 4.