One of baseball's most dominant pitchers just had his worst start of the year, and the debate about his workload is no longer theoretical. A walk rate, the number of free passes a pitcher allows per nine innings pitched, is one way arm freshness shows up in a box score: Jacob Misiorowski had cut his from above four in 2025 to 2.26 this season. Wednesday night at Wrigley Field, he issued four walks and surrendered five runs in four innings against the Chicago Cubs, ending a streak of 25 consecutive starts without allowing more than three earned runs for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Misiorowski is 24 years old and the runaway favorite for the National League Cy Young Award. His season line before Wednesday: 227 strikeouts, a .154 batting average allowed, 84 hits given up in 155 innings, and a WHIP (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched) of 0.79. Opposing major league hitters have been largely unable to reach base.
The innings count behind the decision
The concern is not one bad outing in isolation. It is volume. Misiorowski's average fastball velocity on Wednesday held at or above his season averages, so the arm reads as healthy. The accumulation is the issue. In 2025, he threw 129.1 innings between the minor and major leagues. With at least four more starts remaining in the regular season, he could push toward 180 innings in 2026 alone. Add the postseason, and 200 total innings becomes a real possibility, a jump of more than 70 innings over last year.
Former San Diego Padres ace Jake Peavy, himself a Cy Young Award winner, weighed in directly on MLB Now. Peavy said that in his own career, once he started to wear down, even a week or two of rest rarely brought him back to form if overuse was the root cause. His recommendation was to skip Misiorowski one or two starts now, while the standings still allow it. "If he's fresh, they can win the World Series," Peavy said. "To win a World Series, you have to ride this guy."
The Brewers can afford the caution. They are already locked into the postseason and hold the top overall seed in the National League, which means a first-round bye and likely home field throughout the bracket. Their offense, built around Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, William Contreras, Andrew Vaughn, and Jake Bauers, has been consistent. Kyle Harrison and Logan Henderson give the rotation depth behind Misiorowski. The bullpen features Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, and Aaron Ashby.
The template is Yoshinobu Yamamoto's performance for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2025 World Series. Whether Milwaukee gets that version of Misiorowski may depend on a decision the Brewers' coaching staff, front office, and Misiorowski himself are weighing right now. In 2025, the total innings came to 129.1. He has already thrown 155 this season, with the postseason still ahead.