Pete Crow-Armstrong is 0-for-15 with 11 strikeouts against Jacob Misiorowski — regular season and postseason combined. That’s the number the Cubs center fielder carries to the plate every time he faces Milwaukee’s ace. For the guy who is the -1100 favorite to win the NL MVP award, it’s a specific, documented blind spot that doesn’t square with anything else on his résumé.
The Matchup That Doesn’t Add Up
The 0-for-15 line was flagged by Dan Clark (@DanClarkSports) before the September 8 game, and the context makes it even harder to process. In 2026, PCA is slashing with a .953 OPS and a 7.7 fWAR — the highest mark in all of baseball. Against one single pitcher, he looks like a completely different hitter.
Misiorowski, 24, entered that Tuesday start at 14-5 with a 1.97 ERA, leading the majors in strikeouts, ERA and WHIP. He also holds the record for the fastest pitch thrown by a starter since tracking began in 2008 — 105.5 mph — and has thrown 934 pitches above 100 mph this season. This isn’t a pitcher PCA just happened to run into at the wrong time. This is arguably the best pitcher in baseball right now.
The last public update before the September 8 game came on September 3, when MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reported that PCA had reached base against Misiorowski for the first time — on a walk, not a hit — in a game where the righty also snapped a streak of 25 consecutive starts allowing three or fewer earned runs, the third-longest such streak since 1913. Even on Misiorowski’s worst night of the season, PCA still couldn’t get a hit.
Why Statcast Makes This Even Stranger
The numbers PCA puts up across the rest of the league make the 0-for-15 genuinely difficult to explain. According to Baseball Savant, he averages 90.5 mph exit velocity (74th percentile), a 49% hard-hit rate (90th percentile) and a 13.5% barrel rate (89th percentile). When he makes contact, he hits it hard. The problem against Misiorowski is that contact barely happens.
The thread connecting the strikeouts is plate discipline. PCA’s chase rate sits at the 25th percentile and his whiff rate at the 36th percentile — meaning he chases more than most and misses when he does. Misiorowski, armed with a fastball that touches 105 and one of the best sliders in the league, turns exactly those tendencies into outs.
From May 26 through the end of August, PCA hit .312/.408/.685 against the rest of the world. Against Misiorowski, he becomes predictable. This isn’t a bad weekend. It’s 15 at-bats spread across the regular season and the postseason, with 11 strikeouts. That’s not variance — that’s a pattern.
Why This Goes Beyond September
The September 8 game isn’t just a regular-season footnote. Milwaukee held an 8-game lead over Chicago in the NL Central with fewer than three weeks left in the regular season — the Brewers at 89-56, the Cubs at 81-64. The two clubs already met in the 2025 NLDS (Milwaukee won, 3-2), and the most likely postseason path runs through each other again in October.
If PCA wins the NL MVP — and at -1100, it’s barely a debate — October baseball will eventually put him back in the box against Misiorowski. The 0-for-15 isn’t a trivia answer. It’s a file the Brewers will open the moment it actually matters.
This isn’t about bad luck 15 times in a row. There’s a pitcher in the same division who, so far, has the answer. And he’s only 24.
PCA’s 2026 Numbers at a Glance
- 650 plate appearances
- 41 home runs, 97 RBI
- AVG: .281 | OPS: .953
- xwOBA: .374 (94th percentile)
- Exit velocity: 90.5 mph (74th percentile)
- Barrel rate: 13.5% (89th percentile)
- Hard-hit rate: 49% (90th percentile)
- Bat speed: 74.9 mph (83rd percentile)
- Sprint speed: 96th percentile
