In my opinion, there were three MLB starting pitchers who were must-see TV entering the season: Detroit’s Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes and the L.A. Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, all former Cy Young winners or MVPs. Now it’s time to officially add a fourth: Milwaukee flame-throwing righty Jacob Misiorowski. The new NL Cy Young favorite takes the hill tonight in Atlanta with a 7:15 ET first pitch.
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I’m not going to lie to you — I’m hugely disappointed about this game. Why? Because the Braves got rained out at home Thursday night vs. the Giants, which means instead of a truly electric pitching duel between Misiorowski and 2024 NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale (when he won the pitching Triple Crown), veteran lefty Martin Perez will start for Atlanta instead.
Sale was set for tonight but Thursday’s postponement moved Perez’s start to Friday. That’s a shame because with both the Braves and Brewers leading their respective divisions comfortably, we might see Misiorowski vs. Sale in Game 1 of the NLDS (or NLCS, I suppose) come October if the seeding works out.
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The 24-year-old Misiorowski (8-2, 1.34 ERA) looks like a no-hitter waiting to happen and had the outing of his career last Friday vs. Philadelphia in another possible playoff preview.
In the 1-0 complete-game victory, the “Miz” allowed just one hit with 15 strikeouts and no walks while facing the minimum 27 batters on just 95 pitches – otherwise known as a “Maddux” after Hall of Famer Greg Maddux (a complete game with fewer than 100 pitches). Since the pitch-counting era began in 1988, only two players had pitched a Maddux and even reached 13 strikeouts.
That outing earned a game score of 100, only the 17th nine-inning performance with a game score that high in history. Three of those were perfect games, making Misiorowski only the fourth pitcher to face the minimum 27 batters with a game score of at least 100. The record is 105 by the Cubs’ Kerry Wood in 1998 for his one-hit, 20-strikeout game vs. the Astros that I will never forget, having watched it live on WGN.
Misiorowski leads the majors in ERA, strikeouts (131) and WHIP (0.74) and could become youngest pitcher to lead the majors in all three since earned runs became official in 1913. He’s now the -165 favorite to win the NL Cy Young award. His K/9 ratio of 13.55 is second-best in big-league history for a starting pitcher behind Gerrit Cole’s 13.82 in 2019.
In his past eight starts, Misiorowski is 7-0 with one earned run allowed, 80 strikeouts and a 0.52 WHIP over 54.1 innings. He has joined Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 as the only pitchers in the past 100 years with at least 50 innings pitched and one earned run or fewer allowed in an eight-game span.
For tonight, the SportsLine Projection Model forecasts Misiorowski at 6.2 innings, 8.1 strikeouts, 4.3 hits allowed and 1.7 earned runs in his first career start vs. the Braves. To simply win, he is +110 and set at over/under 8.5 Ks. I haven’t seen any specials and that surprises me but those might be coming later today.
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With both the Miz and Sale in such good form and both contending for the Cy Young (Sale is a +2200 fourth favorite), it’s a shame they won’t match up tonight. But Perez has been darn good. The 35-year-old — I never would have guessed he’s two years younger than Sale –– s 5-3 with a 2.90 ERA in 14 appearances, with a few as a reliever. He’s Atlanta’s swing man but now that Spencer Strider is out for the next few weeks, Perez should be in the rotation for a while.
The Braves have won Perez’s past three, but he likely won’t be going overly deep into tonight’s game, having reached six full innings just once in 2026. Perez has been better at home with a 1.67 ERA and .156 opponents’ batting average.
The model has Atlanta winning very slightly and I don’t rule that out. The Miz is going to have a bulls-eye on his back now, not that most hitters can do much about that. But Perez is no joke, either.
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