The Milwaukee Brewers finished the regular season with the best record in baseball, and Jacob Misiorowski is a huge reason for that.
The superstar pitcher is the favorite to win the National League Cy Young Award and has captivated every fan's attention with his velocity. He alone has thrown more pitches of at least 100 mph than every team in the league. However, he has also gotten great results. It's not just the number on the radar gun that's impressive.
Misiorowski has a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts. Both of those marks are the best in baseball this year. He also allowed an opponent batting average of .157. Not only is that the best mark by a starting pitcher in baseball this year, but it is the best mark by a starting pitcher in a full season ever.
Misiorowski's .157 batting average against is now the best single-season mark ever, breaking Pedro Martínez's 2000 record, when he allowed a .167 opponent batting average. Trevor Bauer allowed a .159 batting average in 2020, which was technically the all-time best single-season mark, but the 2020 season was shortened due to the pandemic. Misiorowski made sure there was no need for an asterisk and also cleared Bauer's mark.
Martínez threw 217 innings and struck out 284 batters in 2000. Misiorowski finished with 174 2/3 innings of work. A combination of a modern pitching philosophy, a six-man rotation and a conscious effort by the Brewers to limit his innings at the end of the year kept him from reaching the 200 innings mark. However, what he has done is still extremely impressive.
