With Jacob Misiorowski hunting a Cy Young Award, the Milwaukee Brewers eye a first-round bye, clinching victory, with some help from the Atlanta Braves.
The Milwaukee Brewers could clinch a first-round bye as soon as Sunday, Sept. 20.
Milwaukee is set to do battle in the series finale against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday Night Baseball in a game that could see their magic number fall to zero.
They'll need a bit of help earlier in the day, but Sept. 20 is officially the soonest day the Brewers could see their magic number go from two to zero, should the Brewers win and the Houston Astros defeat the Atlanta Braves.
Atlanta is 2-0 in this series against Houston, but the Astros have one final chance to secure a victory at Daikin Park against the Braves.
That game has a first pitch roughly five hours prior to the Brewers vs. Orioles game, so manager Pat Murphy and Co. will know what the stakes are when they take the field for the series finale at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Jacob Misiorowski could clinch the Brewers a bye
The sooner the Brewers clinch the bye, the better. Even if the Braves were to win out, all the Brewers would need to do is go 2-5 in their final seven games.
That starts in Baltimore as Jacob Misiorowski is scheduled to make his 29th start of the year. He was pulled after five scoreless innings on Tuesday, Sept. 15, so it'll be interesting to see what they do with him pitch-count wise in this one.
Miz threw 82 pitches in that game, but he threw 93 and 92 in the two games prior. After giving up five earned runs on Wednesday, Sept. 2, Misiorowski has allowed just one earned run in his last 11.1 innings of work.
The 24-year-old still leads the league in ERA (1.89), strikeouts (243), and WHIP (0.81), so to say the Brewers are in good hands would be an understatement.
It's all but a guarantee he's set to win the Cy Young Award in his first full season, which is an incredible feat that's hard to even put into words.
Brewers would love to go into off-day with bye clinched
This Brewers team could look entirely different in their final six games if they no longer have to worry about clinching a bye.
Sure, the best record in all of baseball is still a huge goal that would guarantee them home-field advantage through the World Series, but at some point they need to prioritize giving these arms a break to preserve them for a deep October run.
