CHICAGO (AP) — Luis Robert Jr. looks back at his time with the Chicago White Sox as “a beautiful journey.”
Robert faced his first big league team for the first time when he returned to Chicago with the New York Mets on Friday. He made his second career start in left field and hit sixth in the order for the opener of a weekend series.
There was a mixture of cheers and boos when Robert was announced with the lineup before the game. The White Sox showed Robert on their main scoreboard before the second inning and welcomed him back to his longtime home, and Robert took his hat off before waving to the cheering crowd.
He was booed when he came to the plate in the second, but there were more cheers when he struck out swinging on three pitches.
The 29-year-old Robert played for the White Sox for six seasons before he was traded to the Mets in January for infielder Luisangel Acuña and minor league pitcher Truman Pauley. Robert helped the White Sox make the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, but his final years with the team were marked by injuries and inconsistency.
“It was a time where there were a lot of highs and lows, both personally as a player, but also for the team,” Robert said through a translator. “When I first got here, the team played really well. But those last few years, we didn’t get the job in the way that we wanted to. But at the same time, I can look back at it as a beautiful journey, as a beautiful experience for me.”
The matchup with the White Sox was Robert's 50th game in his first season with the Mets. He was on the injured list with a lumbar spine disc herniation from April 27 to July 20.
He was batting .215 with seven homers and 19 RBIs coming into the game. He connected for a 451-foot solo drive on July 21 at Milwaukee.
“I think this season has been pretty similar to how other parts of my career have gone, where I’ve been hurt, where I've been off the field,” Robert said, “but I think right now the most important thing for me is to finish the season strong.”
Robert made his major league debut with Chicago in 2020, winning a Gold Glove and finishing second to Kyle Lewis in balloting for AL Rookie of the Year. He made the AL All-Star team in 2023, when he hit .264 with 38 homers, 80 RBIs and 20 steals in 145 games.
But Robert hasn't been able to build on the promise he showed at the beginning of his career. He had a career-best 33 steals in 110 games in his final year with Chicago, but he hit just .223 with 14 homers and 53 RBIs.
“He’s kind of been built back from kind of having some injuries earlier in the season,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “Hasn’t been out there every single day because of that. Out of nowhere, it’s 110 mile an hour (opposite-field) home run. It’s insane power. It’s a great athlete.”
The White Sox lost 324 games over Robert's final three seasons with the team. But they are in position to make the playoffs this year, leading the AL Central by 3 1/2 games over Minnesota going into Friday's action. The Mets were last in the NL East after beginning the season with World Series aspirations.
Robert said he still keeps track of how the White Sox are doing, and he isn't surprised by their results so far this year.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “Before I got traded in the offseason, I saw the moves that they were making and the necessary moves to improve the team and that’s what they were doing.”
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New York Mets' Luis Robert Jr., center, speaks to media before a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox in Chicago, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski outdueled one of his favorite pitchers and got quite a compliment from him afterward.
“It seems like he’s kind of in a league of his own this year,” 2024 NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale said after his Braves lost 2-1 to the Brewers on Friday. “It's probably the most impressive fastball I've ever seen."
That compliment meant plenty to Misiorowski, who has said on multiple occasions that Sale was one of the pitchers he enjoyed watching the most while growing up. Misiorowski pitched six shutout innings Friday in his first head-to-head matchup with Sale, who allowed two runs over six innings.
“It’s awesome to hear it from a guy like Sale, such a great guy, definitely a guy I looked up to — and still do,” Misiorowski said. “It’s really cool.”
Sale’s praise for Misiorowski’s fastball came on a day when the Brewers phenom didn’t rely on it nearly as much as usual. He solidified his status as the NL Cy Young Award favorite by showing he can thrive even when his fastball isn’t at its best.
Misiorowski’s 96-pitch outing included 56 four-seam fastballs but also 23 sliders, 14 cutters and three curves. Heading into Friday, Misiorowski was throwing four-seam fastballs 64% of the time and using his slider on only 11% of his pitches.
His fastball also didn’t have quite as much velocity as usual, at least by Misiorowski’s extraordinary standards. Misiorowski reached a top velocity of 103.1 mph, but that was the only pitch in which he exceeded 101.8. He reached at least 100 mph in 32 of his pitches.
“Just one of those days where it was just a down day,” Misiorowski said. “I had to grind through it and make it work.”
He made it work just fine.
“Today I wasn’t seeing the same kind of typical aggression that you usually see out of the fastball with Miz, but the slider was great,” Brewers catcher William Contreras said through an interpreter. “He’s being able to throw the sliders a little bit more to lefties now as well. Tremendous job by him just being able to give us different pitches to use whenever the fastball is maybe a little bit off.”
That assortment kept Atlanta’s hitters off balance.
Misiorowski (13-5) struck out six batters while allowing four hits and two walks in his six-inning stint. He has a 1.68 ERA and 216 strikeouts to lead the majors in both categories. Sale (12-9) has a 2.20 ERA to rank second.
“It’s tough,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “You’re gearing up for 100 and then you’re having to deal with cutters and sliders.”
Misiorowski needed to be that good to beat Sale, who has allowed three runs or fewer in an MLB-leading 20 consecutive starts.
The matchup of Cy Young Award contenders on first-place teams featured a sellout crowd and playoff-type atmosphere. Both pitchers benefited from outstanding fielding.
“Pitching and defense in that game are as good as you’re going to see — really high-level stuff,” Weiss said.
Braves shortstop Mauricio Dubón made a diving stop to start an inning-ending double play. Milwaukee’s Luis Lara attempted to stretch his single into a double but got thrown out on a 92.3-mph laser from right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr., according to Statcast.
Lara, who calls Acuña his favorite player, had a couple of gems of his own. He made a leaping catch at the center-field wall to rob Matt Olson of an extra-base hit in the sixth inning, then moved over to right and snared a 99.3-mph liner from Dubón for the final out of the eighth after Atlanta loaded the bases.
“I think we’ve got to change his name tag to ‘Air Lara,’ “ said Misiorowski, who jokingly asked Lara about that nickname while posing as a reporter during the rookie outfielder’s postgame media session.
With a little help from his friends, Misiorowski won his first head-to-head matchup with Sale, a player the Brewers right-hander has grown to appreciate even more now that they’ve met at the All-Star Game the last two years.
“That’s been really cool,” Misiorowski said. “That’s honestly been probably my favorite part, just getting to talk to guys like that, that I watched … and to get to play (against) now. It’s fun. It’s really fun.”
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski throws during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski tosses out Atlanta Braves' Drake Baldwin at first base during the third inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski throws during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)
