Brewers pull rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski in fourth inning as innings limit looms

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Jacob Misiorowski is the most electric rookie in MLB this season. He might also apparently have to be enjoyed in limited bursts going forward.

The Milwaukee Brewers sensation threw three scoreless innings before getting pulled in the fourth against the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday, the most tangible effect yet of the team's planned limits for the 23-year-old. His final line: 3 2/3 innings, three hits allowed, zero runs, one walk, seven strikeouts and 64 pitches.

His fastball averaged 99.5 mph, and topped out at 101.9 mph. His two curveballs were the only pitches he threw slower than 90 mph.

DL Hall replaced Misiorowski on the mound with two outs and drew a Luke Raley groundout to keep the rookie's start scoreless.

The start was Misiorowski's first since his appearance in the All-Star Game, which came with its own controversy as he had only started five games before last week. MLB's choice to add him to the midsummer classic reflected his otherworldly stuff, which the Brewers are going to want to preserve as much as possible.

How many innings are the Brewers going to give Jacob Misiorowski?

It's not a surprise that the Brewers plan to limit the hard-throwing Misiorowski's workload, especially when they're on track for the playoffs.

Few things make teams more uneasy than young pitchers seeing a huge increase in innings from year to year, and Misiorowski would be trending that way if allowed to pitch like a normal starter. He threw 71 1/3 innings in 2023, his first full season in affiliated ball, and 97 1/3 in 2024. This year, he threw 63 1/3 for Triple-A Nashville before making it to the majors, where he has now thrown 29 1/3 innings, plus his scoreless inning in the MLB All-Star Game.

With Misiorowski already at 92 2/3 innings this year and nearly the whole second half to go, the Brewers are going to do what they can to make a full season as low-risk as possible for an arm already at significant injury risk due to how hard he throws.

Tuesday might be an extreme example of how quickly they pull him, though, as manager Pat Murphy told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"It's important as we manage the health of everyone to make these strategic decisions," he said. "Like, 'OK, who would need a break here?' Miz has not pitched in X number of days, then he throws an inning in the All-Star Game. We can't expect him to go out and throw seven innings tomorrow.

"That's not fair to him. So, you have to kind of do that."

We could do some napkin math. The Brewers are not repeating the mistake the Washington Nationals made with Stephen Strasburg in 2012 by publicizing the number of a hard inning limit, but let's say they don't want him to throw more than 140 innings this season.

If that were the case, and Misiorowski were to make only one start per week for the rest of the regular season, that would leave about nine starts left on his docket and 57 1/3 innings to work with. That adds up to 5.26 innings per start, which doesn't sound too bad (few starters average that many innings anyway). However, there's also the postseason to worry about, and that's where things get hairy.

If the Brewers wanted Misiorowski to be able make, say, three more starts in the postseason, we're talking about 3.94 innings per start. Bump his innings limit up to 150, and it's 4.78.

Let's be clear — all of the above is speculation. The plan probably isn't even a hard innings limit because MLB teams know not all innings are created equal and there are other ways to limit wear-and-tear on an arm. The Brewers might just be monitoring his health and cutting his workload at times when his impact is minimal, at least until he's pitching in the playoffs. 

Still, both the math and the Brewers' comments go to show that if you pay money to watch the Brewers' ace-in-the-making, don't go in expecting to get the full ace experience unless you hear otherwise. There's really no way he can be an every-fifth-day, six-or-seven-innings-per-start kind of pitcher if a workload limit is in the cards.

One area where the limit isn't hurting Misiorowski is awards consideration, as he remains a strong favorite for NL Rookie of the Year at BetMGM.