Unsurprising late-season trend explains Jacob Misiorowski’s pair of laborious postseason starts

Jacob Misiorowski is going to win the NL Cy Young award this year, courtesy of the ERA title (1.80) and strikeout crown (252) he earned in the regular season. By every measure, it was one of the most dominant pitching efforts we've seen in the 21st century.

And, by all accounts, he's kept the good times rolling in the postseason. Through two starts (one each against the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers), he's recorded a solid 3.24 ERA in a pair of wins for the Brewers. Dig a little deeper, and you'll find a 1.90 FIP and enormous groundball (54.5%) and strikeout rates (29.7%) that suggest he's been even better than the results show.

Yet, if you've been watching the games, you know that those numbers haven't come easily. Miz has labored through both of his starts, failing to complete five innings both times. Facing high-quality lineups certainly has something to do with that, but it's also clear that fatigue is starting to set in for the Crew's ace.

Brewers can only hope that Jacob Misiorowski will push through fatigue wall he's hit in October

Fatigue might sound like a silly excuse for a pitcher who just averaged 100.6 mph on his fastball in Game 1 of the NLCS, but outside of his still-premier velocity, most indicators suggest Misiorowski is a little off his game right now.

Against the Dodgers, Misiorowski's fastball generated more than an inch less of induced vertical break (IVB) than usual, due to a sharp decline in his spin rate (2550 rmp vs Dodgers; 2635 rmp season average). Those spin issues also extended to his curveball, which averaged two fewer inches of drop compared to its season average.

With less ride on his fastball and less break in his off-speed pitches, it's no wonder that the Dodgers were less susceptible to whiffing than most of Miz's opponents this year. They, like the Padres before them, swung and missed on less than 25% of their swings, a steep drop-off compared to his 99th percentile whiff rate (37.3%) from the regular season.

It's not hard to guess why this is happening. The 174⅔ innings he threw in the regular season decimated his previous career high of 129⅓ from last year, and he's now eclipsed the 180-inning threshold with his two playoff starts. He's proven to be remarkably durable for someone who throws so hard, but you can only push beyond failure so far.

There's not much the Brewers can do about the workload concerns now, since they'll need Misiorowski to be at his best if they want to reach their ultimate goal this year. With so much rest between each of his two most recent outings, we can only hope that a more normal schedule will help him right the ship in his next postseason start, whenever that may be.

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