Ben Brown says a stress fracture in his neck—seen a second time in his career after a mistake in the 2024 diagnosis—has given him and the Cubs confidence they can fix the underlying cause quickly and prevent it from returning. The injury could limit his abilit
MILWAUKEE — The Cubs’ rotation has been battered all season, and the latest jolt came with Ben Brown, who is now staring at the possibility that he might not make more starts again this year.
For Brown. though. the setback is laced with something like relief: he calls the injury “a blessing in disguise.” The reason is the way it’s been understood this time around. The right-hander’s stress fracture in his neck is the same problem area that cost him the back half of his 2024 season. and it turns out the diagnosis back then was mistaken.
Brown said Saturday that the earlier finding—a benign growth on a bone in his neck described as an osteoma—was “totally wrong.” This new. clearer diagnosis. he said. means the Cubs won’t have to spend time trying to figure out what was actually bothering him. He’ll be shut down from throwing while his vertebrae heal over the next several weeks.
That approach is a key difference from what happened when he rehabbed in 2024. Brown said then that because he didn’t have the correct picture, the pain persisted.
The clearer diagnosis comes with a narrower timeline now. Cubs brass and Brown understand that if he’s to heal and then ramp back up enough to go deep as a starting pitcher. the window won’t be large. That worry mirrors what Cubs have already told left-hander Justin Steele, another pitcher dealing with an injury setback.
Team president Jed Hoyer said it’s “unrealistic” that Steele would return as a starter this year, given the time needed to build back toward going deep into games after a long shutdown.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell echoed the reality of that ramp-up on Saturday. “You shut down a starter for a long time. it takes a while [for them to get back to the point where they’re stretched out enough to go deep into games]. ” he said. “The time frame to get him back as a starter. it takes out a big chunk of the season. for sure.”.
Brown, 26, understands what it costs to come back too quickly. He wants to return as soon as he can. Still, his attention has shifted to a longer horizon as the Cubs try to survive what he described as an avalanche of pitching injuries threatening to bury the team in the middle of the summer.
What changes for him now is the hunt for the cause—not just the cure. Brown said the stress is on his bone and that something about how he throws or his mechanics is leading to it.
“Ultimately, there’s just stress on my bone. Something in my throw or in my mechanics is leading to that,” he said. “There’s something that I’m doing that’s causing it, and I’m working night and day to get to the bottom of that.”
He also framed the moment as an opportunity to do more than merely recover. “As far as career outlook goes, there’s almost a positivity around that, like, ‘Hey, we might be able to actually figure this out.’”
In 2024. Brown posted a 1.85 ERA while becoming the kind of pitcher the Cubs have relied on. and in this season he started as a right-hander who went from the Opening Day bullpen to posting the best numbers in an injury-ravaged rotation. Even with the new timeline stress, he sounded upbeat about what this time around could finally unlock.
“Sometimes a more defined thing might seem worse. I even said it the other day, ‘I feel worse this time around.’ But it’s almost like it’s a good thing,” Brown said. “We can figure this out the right way. … I’m optimistic, the team’s optimistic.”
The central goal, he said, isn’t only to get through this season. It’s to stop the pattern from repeating. “The biggest thing is figuring out how to not let this happen again. Because the bone could heal. I could come back this year. it could be great. throw some really good innings and contribute to this awesome team. But I want to pitch five years from now.”.
Brown said the practical work now is about staying ahead of the curve—using the knowledge gained from what went wrong before, and pushing to change what he does to keep it from returning.
“What does that look like? And that’s the biggest focus right now is, ‘What can we do practically to get on top of the curve here?’”
Chicago Cubs Ben Brown Justin Steele Jed Hoyer Craig Counsell pitching injuries neck stress fracture osteoma MLB