Jacob Misiorowski walked off the mound at Busch Stadium on Tuesday afternoon looking like a guy who just got hit by truck he didn’t see coming. And honestly, that’s basically what happened.
The Milwaukee Brewers’ 24-year-old ace — the guy with a fastball that touches 105 mph and a Cy Young case that seemed bulletproof a week ago — served up his second home run of the day in a doubleheader opener against the St. Louis Cardinals. It wasn’t just a bad outing. It was a career first he definitely didn’t want on his résumé: back-to-back starts allowing multiple homers. He’d never done that before. Not in the minors. Not in the bigs. Not ever.
Talkin’ Baseball clipped the moment on social media, and Brewers fans watched it with that same sinking feeling you get when your favorite pitcher suddenly looks human.
The Numbers Still Look Great. The Trend Does Not.
Let’s be clear: Misiorowski is still the frontrunner for the NL Cy Young. His ERA entering the week hovered around 1.80, his strikeout rate is absurd, and he was named to the 2026 All-Star roster over the weekend. The guy earned that. But baseball isn’t played on spreadsheets.
Last Thursday, the Reds got him for two homers in five innings — and he still struck out 10. That should’ve been a blip. A weird afternoon where his slider didn’t bite and Cincinnati’s hitters got lucky. Instead, Tuesday’s game against St. Louis looked like a replay. Same script. Same mistakes. Same two long balls leaving the yard.
The Cardinals played patient. They laid off his fastball up in the zone and waited until he left something over the middle of the plate. And when he did, they didn’t miss. Two towering shots into the bleachers. That’s four home runs allowed in his last two starts after giving up zero in four of his previous five outings.
What Changed?
Nobody in the Brewers clubhouse is hitting the panic button yet. Why would they? Milwaukee still owns a commanding lead in the NL Central, and Misiorowski’s pure stuff hasn’t gone anywhere. The strikeouts are still there. The velocity is still elite. But the command — even a tiny crack in that — is enough to get punished when you’re facing big-league hitters who study every release point.
He’s getting too much of the plate with his secondary pitches, according to people who track this stuff. And when you throw that hard, guys are sitting on mistakes. It’s not a mechanical overhaul situation. It’s a location problem. One that’s fixable, but only if he figures it out before October.
Milwaukee’s World Series hopes basically run through this kid’s right arm. He flirted with a no-hitter against these same Cardinals back in May. That version of Misiorowski is still in there. But the All-Star break is here, and the Brewers need their ace to use it as a reset — not a chance to overthink.
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