{"id":102214,"date":"2024-03-09T07:24:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T07:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mlbhi.aweu.info\/?p=102214"},"modified":"2024-03-09T07:26:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T07:26:22","slug":"cubs-prospect-ben-brown-could-be-back-really-soon-never-mind-camp-cuts-hong-nhung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/cubs-prospect-ben-brown-could-be-back-really-soon-never-mind-camp-cuts-hong-nhung\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs prospect Ben Brown could be back \u2018really soon\u2019 \u2014 never mind camp cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Cubs
Ben Brown pitches in a Spring Training game at Sloan Park in Mesa, AZ. 02-29-2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n

MESA, Ariz. \u2014\u00a0Cubs\u00a0pitching prospect Ben Brown was hoping the pain in his side last season would disappear on its own. But on his flight to Chicago to get it checked out, a sneeze made him realize it was more than a minor pull.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018Not the flight to Chicago I was hoping for,\u2019\u2019 Brown said in a conversation with the Sun-Times.<\/p>\n

Brown, 24, was on the cusp of a call-up before that oblique injury, which landed him on the injured list in early August. He was among the\u00a012 players cut\u00a0from the Cubs\u2019 spring roster Friday, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that he is expected to contribute to the major-league team this season.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018Generally when we get excited about young pitching prospects, it\u2019s stuff,\u2019\u2019 manager Craig Counsell said Friday. \u2018\u2018Certainly, Ben sits in that category. Then the next hurdle for really all players is [to] just go get people out, go perform. Do that, and he\u2019ll knock the door down, for sure. And we\u2019ll be asking about him soon. Really soon.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

As much as Brown caught the Cubs\u2019 attention last season, he should be even better equipped for the jump to the big leagues now.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018Everyone can see my season last year was a tale of two seasons,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

After Brown made only four starts at Double-A Tennessee, the Cubs promoted him to Triple-A Iowa, where his success continued. But he would have a high-scoring start sprinkled in now and again.<\/p>\n

On June 25, he gave up six runs in the first inning to Memphis and was pulled after only two outs, a low point in his season. The next week, he limited Omaha to two runs in five innings in a nice bounce-back start. Then it happened again: six runs in 1\u2153 innings against St. Paul.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018We saw there was a huge mechanical discrepancy as the season went on,\u2019\u2019 Brown said. \u2018\u2018I was really throwing across my body. I was working toward third base.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

He was often athletic enough to compensate for it.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018But my whole season, I was swaying off from what I do best,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u2018\u2018And that\u2019s working through the zone and working to the zone.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Still, Brown was being mentioned in conversations between the front office and then-manager David Ross about potential bullpen call-ups down the stretch.<\/p>\n

The day before his last start in July, Brown felt some irritation in what he initially thought was his lat muscle. On his start day, he allowed one run in five innings.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018That\u2019s just the guy I am,\u2019\u2019 Brown said. \u2018\u2018I want to pitch. I\u2019ll grind through it. And I was hoping it would just go away the next day.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t. Brown was diagnosed with a strained left oblique. It was initially unclear whether he would be back before the end of the season, but he returned to the mound for Iowa on Sept. 3 as a reliever. Four of his seven appearances out of the bullpen were scoreless, but the other three bumped up his September ERA to 9.39.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018Every single article you read about a Grade 2 oblique strain is two, three months [of recovery],\u2019\u2019 Brown said, praising the training staff at the Cubs\u2019 complex in Arizona. \u2018\u2018The fact that I was able to come back and compete in a month was really cool. So I can hold my head up high, knowing that I did everything I could do to come back and hopefully have the chance to make a difference.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

This winter, which Brown spent throwing at the Cubs\u2019 facility in Arizona, he cleaned up his back-leg mechanics. And he honed in on his three best pitches: his fastball and curveball, which always have been his bread-and-butter, and his changeup,\u00a0which he added last year.<\/p>\n

He also reflected on his mentality through the injury process.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018It was frustrating,\u2019\u2019 Brown said. \u2018\u2018And I think that\u2019s why, when I came back, it was so hard on me. I put this pressure on myself to make a [big-league] debut before I turned 24 or all these things that I\u2019d dreamed of since I was a kid. And I just saw them fold right in front of my face. So when I came back and still had an opportunity, I was just a mental mess.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The mental side of the game became a focus this offseason.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2018It\u2019s going to make for one really cool story one day,\u2019\u2019 Brown said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Brown pitches in a Spring Training game at Sloan Park in Mesa, AZ. 02-29-2024. MESA, Ariz. \u2014\u00a0Cubs\u00a0pitching prospect Ben Brown was hoping the pain in his… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":102218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}