Jacob Misiorowski just threw the fastest pitch by a starting pitcher in MLB history. He did it to Kyle Schwarber. He struck him out.
The Brewers right-hander hit 104.5 mph on a fastball Thursday night against the Phillies. The number lit up Statcast and broke his own previous record of 103.7 mph set just weeks ago. For context, the all-time fastest pitch ever thrown in the majors still belongs to Aroldis Chapman at 105.8 mph, but Chapman is a reliever. No starter in the Statcast era has done what Misiorowski just did.
This is the story Milwaukee has been waiting to tell for two years.
The Brewers drafted Misiorowski in the second round in 2022 out of Crowder College, a junior college program nobody outside of scouting circles had ever heard of. He had a freakish arm and a frame that needed time to fill out. The Brewers player development staff worked on his mechanics, helped him find a slider that complements the heater, and built him slowly through the minor league system. He arrived in the majors looking exactly like what they hoped.
The fastball is one thing. The bigger story is the secondary stuff. Misiorowski is throwing a slider in the upper 80s with real bite. His curveball is a useable third pitch. He has actually shown some feel for changing eye levels, which matters a lot when you are sitting 100 mph in the first inning. Pure velocity is not enough at the major league level. You need to keep hitters guessing. He is doing that.
The Brewers needed this. Milwaukee lost Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes from its previous championship caliber rotation. Freddy Peralta is in his contract year and has been mentioned in trade rumors all month. The farm system was supposed to produce the next wave, and it just did. Misiorowski is the centerpiece.
The longer term question is durability. Pitchers who throw this hard tend to find the injured list eventually. Stephen Strasburg broke down. Jacob deGrom has spent half his career on the shelf. Walker Buehler missed multiple seasons. The history is unforgiving for arms that touch the top of the radar gun on a regular basis. The Brewers know this. They have already built in extra rest days and limited his pitch counts.
Schwarber was the perfect strikeout victim. He has been one of the most powerful left handed bats in baseball for nearly a decade. He is also a guy who has admitted he cannot catch up to elite velocity anymore. Watching him swing through 104.5 was a moment. Watching him laugh in the batter’s box after the at bat was a bigger one.
The Brewers are not the team most people picked to win the NL Central this year. The Cubs were the trendy pick. The Cardinals have spent like contenders. The Reds keep developing waves of young pitching. But Milwaukee just put the league on notice. The arm is real. The roster is built around it. And if Misiorowski stays healthy, the path to October just got a lot wider.
Records like this do not last forever. Someone will eventually throw 105 as a starter. But for now, the fastest pitch ever thrown by a starter belongs to a 24 year old in Milwaukee. That is a hell of a place to plant your flag.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
