Cubs Get Expected News On Ben Brown
A recurring neck injury has officially ended the right-hander's breakout campaign, leaving the North Siders without their most dominant arm as the 2026 season enters the final stretch.
Video Transcript
What is up, Cubs fans?
And welcome back to Cubs Roundtable.
I'm Joey Polizzi talking about all things Cubs and the Cubs obviously did not know what to do with Ben Brown before the season even started.
Was he gonna make the opening day roster?
Was he going to be a part of the rotation, the bullpen?
Like there was a lot of question marks surrounding Ben Brown after such a poor 2025 season for him but Brown eventually made the opening day roster and was put in the Cubs' bullpen where he was fantastic in his first 12 relief appearances.
That strong start then moved Brown to the rotation where the full breakout was in effect.
Brown really good in his first eight starts for the Cub rotation at 1.7 ERA, a 25% strikeout rate.
It felt like he always gave the Cubs a chance to win when he was on the mound.
He had plenty of great starts with the Cubs across that eight-start stretch from early May to about mid June, but then Brown landed on the injured list in late June due to a stress reaction in his neck, and obviously that put his season in jeopardy at that time.
He's dealt with this neck issue in the past back in 2024.
He missed the last three months of that season, and this year the Cubs were hoping to get him back and Brown was making some good progress in his recovery from that neck injury.
He pitched live batting practice.
He also pitched two innings in a bridge game and that bridge game was a big telling point how Brown would be able to recover from pitch bridge game outing and unfortunately, Brown did not bounce back cleanly from that outing.
Suffered a setback met with doctors and now the cubs have officially ruled out ben brown out for the entire 2026 season.
Obviously tough news but expecting news from brown who did suffer the setback just last week it was expected that probably not enough time this season to build him back up and get him ready for later in the season or even the postseason so brown will miss the rest of the 2026 season The cub are hopin', that this next issue they can get right before next seasons because he obviously remains a big part of the Cubs future But let me know you guys think about this latest Brown injury and as always go Cubs!
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