MLB Hitters Share What It’s Like To Face Jacob Misiorowski: ‘Swing And Pray’

It’s not hard to see why facing Jacob Misiorowski is often a fruitless endeavor.

Before this year, Jordan Hicks was the only starting pitcher in the pitch tracking era (since 2008) to eclipse the 103 mph mark on a fastball. He did it twice in 2022.

Misiorowski did it 136 times during the regular season alone.

Cardinals pitcher Pedro Pagés got a first-hand look at Misiorowski’s suffocating velocity on May 25, when he was one of only two players in the lineup to record a hit against the Brewers’ ace, who struck out 12 batters in seven innings of work.

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“Swim and pray”, he told me. “You’ve got to stay short and try to be early. That fastball is different. That fastball is definitely different. He throws it hard, he’s big and he lets it go to you because of his length.”

Misiorowski, the potential National League Cy Young Award winner who will start Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Padres on Saturday night (FS1, 8:30 p.m. ET), led MLB in ERA (1.80), strikeouts (252), strikeout rate (37.9%) and WHIP (0.80), among many categories. He held opponents to a .157 batting average, the lowest mark ever by a qualified starter.

With the hardest fastball on average of any starting pitcher in MLB, it’s no wonder why getting in the box against Misiorowski is usually a frustrating and wasted effort.

Of the 369 times this season that a starting pitcher hit 102 mph with their fastball, 365 belonged to Misiorowski.

“He has the best fastball in baseball,” Mets shortstop Bo Bichette said when asked about facing “The Miz.” “And on top of that, he throws strikes. When you have great stuff and you throw strikes, it’s hard for hitters to get comfortable.”

But it’s not just speed and shooting that cause problems, as Pages pointed out — it’s also where Misiorowski emits that heat.

The 6-foot-7-inch righty has the farthest reach of any starter in MLB, allowing him to shorten the distance significantly from 60 feet, 6 inches between the mound and home plate. For context, Misiorowski’s 7.6-foot strikeout average this season is more than a foot farther than Dylan Cease, who had the second-highest strikeout rate among MLB starters.

Ask those who have faced Misiorowski, and that’s often what sticks with them. His four-seamer, which topped out at 105.5 mph this year, feels a little faster when you add the extra.

“Guys don’t get the tires off as far as he does, which is why I think his fastball plays a lot higher than it was,” Angels infielder Zach Neto, who hit twice in three at-bats against Misiorowski this year, told me. “It was a tough, tough (at-bat), and I think that’s why he has the success he has.”

On August 9, in the first of his three at-bats against Twins infielder Royce Lewis, Misiorowski threw three fastballs over 103 mph.

It’s not the speed itself, Lewis admitted, that makes Misiorowski — a pitcher he described as “one of a kind” and “a unicorn” — stand out from the pack. After all, Lewis has faced 17 different pitchers in his career who have thrown a pitch at least 100 mph against him.

“The biggest difference is his reach at the plate,” Lewis told me. “It’s shortening that distance, so 103 really looks like 112. Your decision-making is accelerated.”

The Rockies agree.

They faced Misiorowski twice during the regular season and lost both games. The first time around, Misiorowski struck out eight batters and allowed one unearned run in seven innings. Some of the best at-bats belonged to Kyle Karros, who lined out sharply in his first plate appearance, doubled in the Rockies’ lone run in the second and walked in the third.

In doubles, Karros went through a slider and then saw a 101.7 mph four-seamer go by to fall 0-2. He then fought back, leaving two four-seamers just outside the area before going the other way at a slider on the outer half.

Like most others, Karros was thinking about heaters all the time. Unlike most others, he was able to adapt.

“I think the biggest thing about it is that you can’t try to do too much,” Karros told me. “You can’t try to compare power to power. All my hits were up the middle or opposite field, just letting it deliver the power, because it’s like a fastball you’ve never seen before.”

The second time Misiorowski faced the Rockies a month later, he struck out 12 in five innings of one-run innings. He didn’t mess with his second in that time, throwing 80% four-seam fastballs. He didn’t throw any sliders.

In the first at-bat of the game, he threw Rockies outfielder Jake McCarthy six four-footers over 103 mph.

“A lot of people see the velo, and that’s what gets the attention,” McCarthy told me. “And, obviously, 103 is 103. … But, somehow the angle of his pitches, there’s a lot of different elements that go into it and not just, ‘Here’s 104, try to hit it.'”

Angels pitcher Wade Meckler hit just three home runs during the regular season, but one of those three was among Misiorowski’s 14 homers in 2026.

Meckler, a left-handed hitter, didn’t see a four-seamer in the at-bat.

“As any hitter will tell you, they’re only on the fastball against him because you have to be,” Meckler told me. “But he threw me that first point cutter and it’s a different look.”

Meckler saw that cutter go through at 95.5 mph for a strike on the inside corner of the plate. So Misiorowski tried the same pitch in the same place again. Despite thinking about the four-seamer, Meckler was able to adjust to the cutter — “my brain had now, I think, seen what that pitch looked like,” he explained — pulling a 388-foot home run to right-center.

While Meckler said he would prefer to look at his season as a complete body of work as opposed to his success in one at-bat, this was, clearly, among the highlights of his season.

“I mean, it’s nice to say you’ve gone deep, obviously,” Meckler said. “I’ll tell people I took it deep.”

It’s not the extension itself, in Meckler’s mind, that stuck out the most from facing Misiorowski that day.

Rather, it’s the fact that along with his reach, speed and Misiorowski’s low release comes a deceptively horizontal break on the side of his arm. His 11.2-inch strikeout with the four-guard ranked 18th among right-handers who threw at least 500 fastballs during the regular season.

That’s part of the reason, Meckler believes, why Misiorowski had contrasting splits this year. (Lefties had a .378 OPS against Misiorowski this year, while righties had a .582 OPS.)

“For whatever reason, it creates this optical illusion for a left-handed hitter,” Meckler said. “It creates this incremental effect.”

The second time Misiorowski faced Meckler that day, he fired three four-footers for a touchdown.

“It’s the best fastball I’ve ever seen, personally,” Meckler continued. “If it was 92 mph instead of 103 mph, it would be a lot easier. But the fact that it’s 103 mph on the arm, that’s, I think, what sets him apart from other guys who throw hard from that low spot.”

The Angels handed Misiorowski one of his five losses of the season on the day, despite the Brewers star striking out 10 and allowing just two runs over seven innings.

“If I had to face him again, I’d try to be ready for a fastball and just hope I get it,” Neto said. “It’s one of those things, you don’t really have time to think about what’s coming or try to see what’s coming. Because it’s 104 coming at you.”

Misiorowski and three relievers — Ben Joyce of the Angels, Edgardo Henriquez of the Dodgers and Mason Miller of the Padres — are the only pitchers to eclipse 104 mph in the regular season. Joyce did it four times, Henriquez twice, Miller once.

The Miz did it 22 times, often saving it for tougher competition, including twice for Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber.

Harper pushed Misiorowski deep in 2025, but he went 0-for-3 against the Brewers flamethrowers this season.

“All I can do is try to be on time,” Harper said of facing Misiorowski. “I had success for the first time against him, but the next three shots weren’t the best. He has incredible stuff.”

In his only appearance against the Phillies in 2025, Misiorowski struck out 15, a complete-game shutout on just 95 pitches. However, the Braves beat the Phillies in the wild card round, so Harper won’t get another shot at Misiorowski this season.

“I haven’t faced a lot of guys like that in my career,” Harper said. “He has one of the best heaters out there and plays. He plays in this league and I don’t see him going anywhere.”

FOX Sports MLB Writer Deesha Thosar contributed to this story.