Now folks, I've called a lot of ballgames in my life. Thousands of them. And every so often one comes along where the best thing you can do behind the microphone is just shut up and let people watch. Sunday afternoon against the Rockies was one of those. Jacob Misiorowski struck out twelve, gave up one hit, and did it all with a shrug — like a fella taking out the garbage.
He struck out the side in the first. Struck out the side in the second. By the time he'd fanned his seventh man in a row to open the third, he'd broken a Brewers franchise record. Struck out 12 of the first 13 hitters he faced. The Rockies were walking back to that dugout so often they should've charged 'em rent on the path.
Here's the part that got me. He threw 66 fastballs, and every single one of them registered at least 100 miles per hour. Sixty-six! That's a new record — he broke his own mark of 58 from the Phillies game last month. The man is out there breaking records he set six weeks ago. At this rate he'll have to start competing against himself, because nobody else is close.
The only blemish came in the fifth, when Cole Carrigg got just enough of a 101-mile-an-hour fastball to poke it over the left-field wall — ending the perfect game, the no-hitter, and the shutout all in one swing. And you know what Misiorowski said about it? Nothing. Didn't care. "I'm worried about the next guy." Twenty-four years old and he's already got the memory of a goldfish, which, let me tell you, is exactly what you want in a pitcher.
But my favorite thing he said came after. They told him he'd just made history — first pitcher since 1969 to rack up eleven strikeouts without allowing a hit through four innings. And the kid looked at them like they were speaking Latin. "I had no idea," he said. "I'm just throwing to Gary."
Just throwing to Gary. Sixty years I've been around this game, and that might be the most beautiful sentence I've ever heard a pitcher say. No idea he was making history. Just him, his catcher, and the best fastball on planet Earth. Rest easy tonight, Brewers fans. The kid's just getting started — and he doesn't even know it.