The Launch Angle

It’s the Skull-Crushing Finale of the 3 games series with the Brewers, the rubber game, after the two teams split the first two games.

The Astros face monster second year right handed pitcher, Jacob Misiorowski, aka the Miz, who has prime Aroldis Chapman level fastball speeds, except he can do it for 6 or 7 innings a game, instead of just 1.

Misiorowski has a 1.83 ERA in 64 innings pitched across 11 starts (5-2) in 2024. He has a stellar 0.828 WHIP, and 2.7 BB/9. He has an insane 14.1 K/9. With a 4-seamer that has reached 103.6 mph this year, he is racking up the strikeouts. It’s not even the end of May, and he already has 100 K.

In the month of May alone, Misiorowski pitched 31 1/3 innings, went 4-0 in 5 starts (and his one no-decision was 7 innings of shutout ball), allowed only 11 hits, just 1 run, and recorded 6 walks to 49 strikeouts. (All that, and he may not even win NL pitcher of the month because Philly’s Cristopher Sanchez hasn’t allowed ANY runs in a 44 2/3 scoreless inning streak dating back to April 30.)

If the Astros want to take this series, they’re going to need to hit well against the fastball. Really the fastball of all fastballs.

Coming into yesterday, the Astros had seen 8,655 pitches. 4,745 of them were fastballs (4-seamers, sinkers, cutters).

Here’s how the 2026 Astros have fared against fastballs. (Note: some players like Dustin Harris, Daniel Johnson, Cesar Salazar are not listed individually)

The Astros have generally been very good against fastballs compared to the rest of the majors. But Jacob Misiorowski’s fastball isn’t just any fastball. He averages 99.8 mph on his 4-seamer.

Do you know what this means? Do you know what this means?

There have been 1357 pitches of at least 100 mph this season. Misiorowski has thrown 311 of them (22.9%). There have been 137 pitches 102 mph or more. Misiorowski has thrown 67 of them (48.9%). There have been 26 pitches 103 mph or more. Misiorowski has thrown 22 of them (84.6%).

The Astros have seen just 51 pitches in triple digit mph, and have just 2 hits on them.

The first came on opening day, an opposite field single on a 100.0 mph four-seamer from Jose Soriano, on the first pitch Joey Loperfido saw in 2026.

The second came a few weeks, Isaac Paredes pulled a 101.4 sinker from Edgardo Hernandez to left field for a single.

51 pitches isn’t a very large sample though, so let’s expand our criteria to fastballs 98+ mph and 95+ mph and compare to the rest of MLB.

Here we can see that the Astros are generally better against fastballs at most every tier. The discrepancy between the Astros and the rest of MLB seems to go away once you starting looking only at 100+ mph pitches.

That’s only a 51 pitch sample though, for 100+ mph pitches. Still, the Astros on those 51 pitches, have about a .220 xwOBA and 34.6% Whiff rate, which is although it isn’t much better that the rest of MLB, it’s also not worse (MLB has .220 xwOBA and 34.9% Whiff rate)

The problem is that being the same as everyone else against Misiorowski isn’t good news. The same as everyone else? Misiorowski dominates everyone else!

The odds are long, but that’s why you play the game. Nothing left to do but get in the box and give your best against the best.

Brewers @ Astros Game Information and Gamethread Details

Tatsuya Imai starts for the Astros. He is coming off pitching the first 6 innings of a combined no-hitter. While the result was fantastic, his pitching actually wasn’t as great as the scoreboard would lead you to believe. He generated only 3 swings and misses. Still, a no-hitter on the ledger may be enough to boost his confidence and get his mental game back on track. If the Astros want to claw their way back into the division race, they’re going Imai to start delivering soem of what they signed Imai for.

This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.

The Astros remain 3.5 games behind the Mariners who are on a 5 game win streak.

The game will be broadcast at 7:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.

We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads. It’s been a blast as the Astros seem to be finding their footing on the season.

Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .

For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.

If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)

Feature photo by Drovetochicago. Creative Commons License.