No one would have predicted Ben Brown would be the Cubs’ best pitcher two months into a championship-or-bust season.
Brown landing in the All-Star Game after a woeful 2025 campaign would have been an even more outrageous prediction.
But here the Cubs stand in early June, and Brown is the most obvious candidate to represent the club at the Midsummer Classic.
“Just to think about the arc of the last two months,” Brown said Tuesday, “to see that would be crazy.”
The 26-year-old righty struggled last season, with a 5.92 ERA. Today, after vaulting from his season-opening bullpen job into the rotation, his 2026 ERA is a full 4.00 points lower, at 1.92. That number leads the Cubs’ staff and, coming into Thursday, ranked sixth in baseball among pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched.
“I was looking over my shoulder a lot last year, especially at this time,” Brown said. “At that point, I didn’t think it was going to get any better. And I wish I could have told myself that I was really close to getting better.”
The Cubs credit Brown’s expanded arsenal, now featuring a changeup and sinker after only boasting a fastball and a curveball in the past. Being more unpredictable to opposing hitters has turned Brown from a pitcher who gave up 18 home runs in 106 1/3 innings last season into a pitcher who’s dominated the competition.
He gave up a homer to the first batter he faced this season but hasn’t allowed a ball to leave the yard since.
“I’m so happy for him,” shortstop Dansby Swanson told the Sun-Times. “He cares a lot, cares about the right things. He’s such an unbelievable guy and teammate. Just seeing his evolution, the pitch mix and having him dedicate himself to his craft, to learn things, be willing to try things and have the confidence to go do them, has been awesome.”
“His talent level is top-top-notch,” righty pitcher Colin Rea told the Sun-Times. “His arm is super fast. He’s super aggressive, and he comes right after you. It’s exciting to see the results get to where they should be with how good his stuff is. He’s a horse, too. He’s super strong.”
All-Star or not, the Cubs need Brown to keep pitching like this.
The rotation has been plagued by injuries, Cade Horton lost for the season and Matthew Boyd spending a month on the IL. Additionally, Jameson Taillon and Shota Imanaga have struggled.
So Brown has stood out, his success magnified even more with the offense trapped in a team-wide funk. Hence the All-Star talk and such a suggestion making sense, despite the roster’s star power.
Of course, there’s still more than a month until the All-Stars assemble in Philadelphia, which is where Brown thought he’d be playing his big league games after being drafted by the Phillies in 2017. Five years later, he came to the Cubs in a deadline deal.
Who was waiting for him? The same guy who’s caught Brown’s last four starts another half decade later.
“When he got traded from the Phillies, I was in Double-A. I met him his first day. I caught his first bullpen in the Chicago Cubs organization,” catcher Miguel Amaya told the Sun-Times. “It’s pretty cool and fun catching him here in the big leagues.
“It would be really cool [to see Brown make the All-Star team], especially me being part of his outings. Going out there and working together, it means a lot to me. I’m proud of him for all the success he’s having so far.”
We’ll see if Brown’s emergence and the Cubs’ surprising early-summer stumble make the right-hander the team’s lone All-Star — or if he keeps pitching well enough to get to the game at all.
For the Cubs, there are more important months than July. They are excited about what Brown can do for them come October.
But it still remains remarkable, the idea of Brown standing alongside Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge on baseball’s biggest in-season stage.
“It would be awesome to see him in the All-Star Game,” Rea said. “I don’t see him slowing down any time soon.”
