Michael Busch trying to find version of himself that could carry Cubs: ‘I don’t feel like I’ve hit a stride’
PHOENIX – A season ago, Michael Busch was the Cubs’ home-run leader.
But after smacking 34 bombs in 2025, the first baseman came into Monday sixth on the roster with just 16 this year.
It’s not that he hasn’t been effective – his .352 on-base percentage was the highest of his young major league career – but he hasn’t been the same lineup-carrying presence he was at times last season.
The Cubs’ offense has been plenty productive without Busch’s pop, waking up Monday as baseball’s highest-scoring team.
But Busch could still be that guy, and though center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has been arguably baseball’s best player and third baseman Alex Bregman is having a tremendous second half, that would be a big thing for a Cubs team seeking a deep October run.
“Michael had an incredible offensive season last year,” manager Craig Counsell said Sunday. “When you do that as a really young player, we all want to go, ‘Oh, that’s how it’s going to be, and it’s going to even get better.’
“But he has not hit for the power you would have expected after a season like last year, and that may be just that he didn’t get in that mode this year and he didn’t hit them in bunches like we’ve seen him hit them in the past.
“He’s still got a six-week stretch where he can do that, and that still could come.”
Busch pointed to a slow start as something of a defining moment for his season so far.
He hit just .224 with only four home runs and a .361 slugging percentage in his first 51 games. He came into Monday batting .256 with 12 homers and a .416 slugging percentage in the 78 games since.
But Busch is still waiting for that other version of himself to arrive, the guy who could be the difference as the lights get their brightest.
“I feel like I’m not tapping into what I’m capable of, in a sense,” he said Monday. “The stretch at the beginning [of the season], trying to find a groove, find a rhythm, that took me a little longer than I would have hoped. But just grinding through that, I learned a lot about me as a player, my swing, what makes me click.
“Battling some of those things has helped me going forward, though I don’t feel like I’ve hit a stride. So it’s still continuing to work and trying to find that stride. I’m playing all right, but I haven’t hit that stride that you look for – but [a stride] you also don’t try to press upon, because you understand the game.
“I’m just trying to work, continue to grind and do what I can to help this team win the rest of the year.”
Brown working back
Should one more round of live batting practice go well for righty pitcher Ben Brown, he could soon begin a minor league rehab assignment, the notable next step as he works back from a stress fracture in a vertebra in his neck that knocked him out in late June.
Though Brown excelled as a starter earlier this season, posting a 1.70 ERA in eight starts, he is expected to return in a relief role, a potentially intriguing weapon as the Cubs head toward the postseason.
Shaw update
Utility man Matt Shaw is on a minor league rehab assignment with Triple-A Iowa, with four hits in his first three games.
“We got some good health feedback from the first three days,” Counsell said, “now we’ve got to get some at-bats under his belt.”