Jacob Misiorowski didn’t just have the best month of his young career, but one of the greatest months ever for a Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher.
What it wasn’t, at least in the eyes of the Major League Baseball voting panel, was the best month of May by a National League starting pitcher.
On Wednesday, MLB announced the Players and Pitchers of the Month in the American and National Leagues, and Misiorowski wasn’t one of them. Philadelphia Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez, who will likely compete with Misiorowski for Cy Young Award honors all year, took that honor instead.
The tale of the tape was crazy. Misiorowski allowed just one earned run in 38 2/3 innings (0.23 ERA) and struck out 57 batters. But he did that across six starts.
Sanchez only made five starts in the month, but he threw 39 innings, so he had that on Misiorowski. He didn’t allow a single run, and that was probably the difference in the voting results. In fact, Sanchez’s streak came to an end on Wednesday, and it wound up in the history books.
According to MLB.com’s Paul Casella, Sanchez’s streak of 50 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, dating back to April, was the fifth-longest in MLB history. Those ahead of him: Orel Hershiser in 1988, Don Drysdale in 1968, Walter Johnson in 1913, and Jack Coombs in 1910.
We passionately argued for Misiorowski to win the award earlier this week, and we don’t regret it. His FIP, strikeout rate, WHIP, and lots of other stats were better. But at the end of the day, we can freely admit it’s hard to argue against a guy who doesn’t give up a run for an entire month.
The Brewers will still happily take the results Misiorowski gave them; he earned five wins last month, and in the one game he started that the Brewers didn’t win, he still went seven scoreless innings.
And if a 1.65 ERA holds for the rest of the season, it sure seems likely that Misiorowski could outlast the likes of Sanchez and Shohei Ohtani to win the Cy Young.
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