PITTSBURGH – For Jacob Misiorowski, this was much more like it.
For Bubba Chandler, it was time to move on to the next one.
In a matchup of two of the best pitching prospects in baseball, 23-year-old Misiorowski got back on track with the first seven-inning start of his career, while 22-year-old Chandler surrendered more runs and hits in his first Major League start (nine apiece) than he recorded outs (eight) in the Brewers’ 10-2 win over the Pirates on Sunday at PNC Park.
Milwaukee completed a series sweep of a Pittsburgh team that had just swept the Dodgers, and it matched the high-water mark for the season – and franchise history – at 34 games over .500 (89-55) by jumping all over Chandler, who is the top-ranked pitching prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline. The right-hander had three multi-inning relief outings on his Major League résumé before making his first career start on Sunday, and the Brewers greeted the occasion by scoring four runs on four hits and one walk in the first inning, one run in the second and four more in the third before Chandler was replaced with two outs by reliever Colin Holderman.
“I wouldn’t say I’m anywhere near a veteran at this point, but the biggest thing is just keep going,” said Misiorowski, who has 12 big league starts in the books. “I mean, I had a few rough ones, and you’re here for a reason. So you’re going to figure it out.”
Misiorowski knows the feeling. Called up in June as MLB Pipeline’s No. 4-ranked Brewers prospect and No. 68 overall, he took MLB by storm in June and early July but had faltered of late, going 0-1 with a 7.71 ERA over his past five starts going into Sunday. He got back on track against the Pirates’ 30th-ranked offense by allowing three hits and only one run for his first victory since breaking Paul Skenes’ record for the fewest big league starts prior to an invitation to pitch in the All-Star Game.
Misiorowski walked the first two hitters he faced but issued no more the rest of the game, retiring 16 of the 17 hitters he faced after yielding Liover Peguero’s RBI single in the second inning, including 13 in a row to finish his outing.
“He’s got a microscope on him from all you guys, right? Because he started so good and got so much attention for himself,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “Now he’s over the amount of innings he’s ever pitched, how many pitches he’s ever thrown, and he’s doing it on a big league stage where there’s a lot on the line. I can only tell you that this is a great learning experience for him, and he answered the bell today.
“Under normal circumstances, could he have been out of that game early? Yeah. But he settled in and showed he has the resiliency to make those adjustments.”
Misiorowski threw a career-high 108 pitches (74 strikes) to match Freddy Peralta’s season high for the Brewers – and a professional high for Misiorowski, who topped out in the Minors at 99 pitches in a May 9 start for Triple-A Nashville. His seven innings matched his career high as a professional.
“All of a sudden his tempo was good. He was on time. And I'm like, ‘Why would we take him out? It's as good as he's looked,’” Murphy said. “The fourth, fifth and sixth were better than the first three. I was concerned in the first three."
“We just couldn’t do anything with him after that,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said.
Chandler (MLB Pipeline’s No. 2 Pirates prospect, No. 7 overall) has all the tools to make a similar bounceback, with triple-digit velocity that rivals Misiorowski’s. Called up from Triple-A Indianapolis on Aug. 22, Chandler made his debut that night against the Rockies at PNC Park. He pitched four scoreless innings in a bulk relief role and was credited with a save.
Chandler worked four more scoreless innings in his next outing on Aug. 27 at the Cardinals to get his first MLB win. On Tuesday, Chandler got another win, though the Dodgers scored three runs against him in four innings.
However, Chandler’s first start did not go nearly as smoothly, as his ERA rose from 2.25 to 7.36. The Brewers focused on the fastball and chose the right ones to attack, with Andrew Vaughn leading the way with a career-high-tying four hits and Jake Bauers adding two hits and two RBIs to finish 6-for-12 with six RBIs in the series while Christian Yelich sat with a sore back.
All that came after Pirates starters had been charged with just 13 earned runs in the previous 16 games.
“I felt great,” Chandler said. “I don’t think I did a good job of sequencing or landing stuff early. When I started to do it, I just kind of felt like I got in a rhythm and was kind of just throwing. Maybe not trying to compete as hard as I can, but maybe I could’ve done something differently with the outcome. Got to get better.”
Over in the visitors’ clubhouse, Murphy pointed to William Contreras’ first-inning walk as the plate appearance that defined the Brewers’ approach. Chandler was ahead in the count 0-2, then threw three consecutive offspeed pitches out of the strike zone. At Triple-A, perhaps he gets a hitter to chase. But Contreras resisted that urge, and when Chandler missed again with a fastball, it loaded the bases for Bauers’ two-run double.
“That was the key to the whole thing, not chasing when a pitcher doesn’t have his best stuff and the fastball isn’t playing up the way it normally does,” Murphy said. “But this kid looks phenomenal. What a talent, what an athlete. He looked like a strong safety in football.”
In Kelly’s eyes, Chandler should grow from the roughest outing of his nascent career.
Just like Misiorowski has drawn lessons from his occasional stumbles.
“Baseball’s a tough game to play in general, especially here at the big league level,” Kelly said. “There’s just always something challenging guys, and they are always continuing to learn about how they can make adjustments and get better.
“Knowing the competitor Bubba is, he’ll be back to the drawing board with [pitching coach] Oscar [Marin] and the pitching group finding some ways to learn from this game.”