CHICAGO – Sitting at his locker on Friday morning, Ben Brown allowed himself to smile when a group of reporters approached. The Cubs had not yet announced a probable starter for Saturday’s game against the Reds – Brown’s scheduled day to pitch – making it fair to wonder if something was up.
“No panic,” Brown said.
Ahead of Chicago’s 6-2 loss to the Reds in the opener of this three-game set, Brown explained that he was still in the pitching plans. Following the game, the Cubs announced that lefty reliever Drew Pomeranz would serve as an opener on Saturday, meaning Brown would line up behind him with the goal of handling the bulk of the middle innings.
Right now, the North Siders are doing what they can to put the rotation pieces in the most optimal position, especially as the team continues to await lefty Shota Imanaga’s return from the injured list. Brown remains a crucial part of the puzzle, given the way the depth behind the Major League cast has thinned as June looms.
“He’s really important to us. We have a lot of guys injured,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said of Brown earlier this week. “Right now, we’re counting on him and hopefully he can start to [get more consistent results].”
Righty Javier Assad (60-day IL) only recently resumed playing catch after another setback with his left oblique injury. Lefty Jordan Wicks (currently with Triple-A Iowa) landed on the Minor League IL this week due to a left hamstring injury.
Throughout this homestand, lefty Justin Steele – out for the season following left elbow surgery – has been on hand at Wrigley Field to continue his rehab and be around his teammates. Since stepping into the rotation for Steele in April, Rea has been solid overall, but Friday’s outing went awry.
Rea allowed a trio of two-run home runs in the loss, but still worked into the sixth inning to help give manager Craig Counsell options for how to handle Saturday’s game. Ultimately, Counsell decided to assign the first inning to Pomeranz, allowing Brown (6.39 ERA in 11 outings) to switch up his routine a bit in an effort to get him back on track.
“The hardest innings for a starter are going to be the first inning and the sixth or the seventh, right?” Counsell said. “The first inning, really, because it’s the inning you haven’t been on the mound in competition for five days. You're facing probably the top hitters in their lineup and it requires you to kind of lock in immediately against the team’s best hitters. So, it’s a normal thing.
“You tend to examine routine a little bit when you struggle with it. And frankly, that’s an easier place to make some tweaks than maybe adding a changeup, right? It’s just a little easier to think about some adjustments there.
“I think it’s a place that we’ve spent some time with and some focus to try to probably just do something different, because I think it warrants doing something a little different.”
To Counsell’s point, Brown has allowed 11 earned runs in the 10 first innings he has pitched this season. Eight of his 18 walks (44.4%) have come in the opening frame. By contrast, the hard-throwing right-hander has allowed just two runs in the second and third inning combined (20 innings total) this year.
Brown said he has felt a little too amped up in the opening frame of some of his outings, and he believes some mistakes early in his starts have led to more-confident hitters deeper in the game. He has examined mixing up his pregame routine, but also trying to find ways to get his delivery in sync out of the gate.
In Brown’s last outing on Sunday, he faced the Reds and allowed four runs in the first inning before spinning three perfect innings across the second and fourth. Overall, he allowed eight runs, but then watched the Cubs’ potent lineup score eight over the final four innings to pull off an improbable 11-8 comeback win.
Brown will have a shot at some redemption against Cincinnati’s lineup on Saturday.
“It’s all great to say that I’ve been working on things,” Brown said. “But in all reality, the Cincinnati Reds, they don’t care that I’ve been working on things. I’ve got to go out there and get outs. That’s the goal."