Nobody Hits the Miz

On improbable talent and a message of hope from the future.

Friday night in Milwaukee — while sports fans reveled in a thrilling Stanley Cup Final and the rise of the Knicks and perhaps the most impressive American men’s World Cup performance ever — a 24-year-old Missourian named Jacob Misiorowski quietly pitched a game sent back to us from the future.

There have been a handful of games that match up statistically — Misiorowski threw a complete game one-hitter, struck out 15, and didn’t walk anybody. That added up to exactly a 100 Game Score. It was only the 17th nine-inning performance to score 100. Three of those were perfect games from Big Unit, Matt Cain, and Sandy Koufax. One was Max Scherzer’s near-perfecto when he hit the 27th batter he faced. Two of them were Nolan Ryan no-hitters. One of them was Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game.

None of them, though, was like Misiorowski’s masterpiece.

That’s because none of them, not even Nolan Ryan himself, threw FIFTY EIGHT pitches in a single game clocked at 100 mph.

FORTY-FOUR of those were clocked at 101 mph.

THIRTY-ONE of those were clocked at 102 mph.

FOURTEEN of those were clocked at 103 mph.

FOUR of those were clocked at 104 mph.

This is science fiction.

We have spent the last few years watching pitchers test the outer limits of human performance — and along the way have watched their elbows blow up in real time — but this is something different, something that not only defies explanation, it utterly defies what our minds can comprehend. One thing I’ve been talking about lately with a couple of friends is how our reaction to watching Victor Wembanyama travel from halfcourt to the basket in two steps is not awe or reverence but, instead, a kind of frantic laughter. It’s the laughter of awe, the laughter of reverence, but also the laughter of happy confusion and shock.

You might see it spelled out in the comic books like so:

??III???II??III???III???II

I propose we use the verb “Wemby” as in:

Simone Biles’ floor exercise was so ridiculous, I found myself wembying again and again.

Or:

So many defenders bounced off Josh Allen that all you could really do was wemby.

Or if you want to turn it into a noun:

The ballpark filled with wembyance as Shohei Ohtani threw a no-hitter and blasted three home runs.

Point is, Jacob Misiorowski is now so preposterous that we have moved past all the emotions that even Kershaw and Verlander and Skubal and others evoked and are instead simply laughing uncontrollably, Wemby style. Look at the Miz’s eight starts since the start of May:

• May 1 vs Nationals: 5 1/3 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs, 8 strikeouts. 43 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 103 mph.

• May 8 vs. Yankees: 6 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 11 strikeouts, 41 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 103.6 mph

• May 13 vs. Padres: 7 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs, 10 strikeouts, 40 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 103.3 mph

• May 19 vs. Cubs: 6 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 8 strikeouts, 21 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 101.5

• May 25 vs. Cardinals: 7 innings, 2 hits, 1 run, 12 strikeouts, 57 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 103.4

• May 31 vs Astros: 7 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 8 strikeouts, 39 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 103.1

• June 6 vs. Rockies: 7 innings, 4 hits, 1 run (unearned), 8 strikeouts, 52 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 103.7

• June 12 vs. Phillies: 9 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 15 strikeouts, 58 pitches of 100 mph, topping out at 104.5.

Total for the eight games: 7-0, 54⅓ innings, 1 earned run, 0.17 ERA, 80 strikeouts, 351 pitches of 100-mph or more.

Not only has nothing like this ever happened before … nothing CLOSE to this has ever happened before. Jacob Misiorowski is inventing a new game in real time. If Wemby is The Alien, the Miz is Future Man. It’s unclear why he was sent back to our time. It’s probably to give us hope.

Of course, you cannot watch Misiorowski pitch without thinking about that elbow and that shoulder. You cannot watch the Miz without hoping against hope that we don’t read that the Brewers are shutting him down out of an “abundance of caution,” and then follow-up announcement that they only expect him to miss one or two starts, and then the follow-up announcement that he’s having Tommy John surgery. All we really can do is dream that it doesn’t happen, that he ends up having the freakish longevity of Nolan Ryan or Tom Seaver or Max Scherzer.

In the meantime, we can only wemby as he blows away hitters with 104 mph fastballs that he seems to throw with the ease of royalty eating grapes. It makes no sense at all. The very best things rarely do.