MILWAUKEE — Ben Brown’s breakout season is on an indefinite pause while the Chicago Cubs pitcher recovers from a fractured bone in his neck and searches for answers on how to prevent what appears to be a recurring injury.That process could take most of the rest of the regular season, if not all of the remaining three-plus months on the schedule, forcing the Cubs to go forward without an All-Star-caliber performer.Underlining the unpredictability of the situation, Brown said a 2024 diagnosis of this neck injury turned out to be “totally wrong.”“I feel worse this time around, but it’s almost like it’s a good thing,” Brown said before Saturday’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. “We can figure this out the right way. The MRI and the scans reflected that, too. I’m optimistic. The team’s optimistic.“The biggest thing is just figuring out how to not let this happen again. Because, ultimately, the bone can heal, I can come back this year, and it all can be great. I can throw some really good innings and contribute to this awesome team. We’re going to go a long way.“But I want to pitch five years from now. What does that look like? That’s the biggest focus right now: What can we do, practically, to get on top of the curve here?”Back in 2024, Brown pitched 55 1/3 innings before getting shut down in June and seeking explanations for the pain in his neck. It turned out to be an atypical season-ending injury for a pitcher. The issue was eventually and incorrectly identified as osteoma, a piece of bone growing as a benign tumor.“That’s not the case,” Brown said, explaining that a worsening injury more clearly revealed a stress reaction this time. “We just have more clarification of what it was. At the end of that process in ’24, we were starting to think that might not have been the right answer.”The uncertainty had weighed on Brown, who used these experiences and disappointments to get to the next level of his career and prove himself as a dynamic major-league pitcher.Now 26, Brown was an A-ball prospect when the Cubs acquired him from the Philadelphia Phillies in the David Robertson trade at the 2022 deadline. Brown had undergone Tommy John surgery in 2019 and missed another developmental opportunity when the 2020 minor-league season was canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Listed at 6 feet 6, 230 pounds, Brown has grown physically and improved on the mental side of the game. An evolving, diversified pitch mix has given him more confidence and options to attack hitters. Something in that chain is breaking down.“There’s a stress on my bone, something in my throw or in my mechanics that’s leading to that,” Brown said. “It’s not a freak injury anymore. There’s something that I’m doing that’s causing it. I’m working night and day to get to the bottom of it. And the people here are, too. As far as career outlook goes, there’s almost like a positivity around that, like: ‘Hey, we might be able to figure this out.’”Brown has been, by far, the club’s most valuable and versatile pitcher this year. His combined contributions as a high-leverage reliever and a dominant starter have been worth 2 bWAR. That system gives every other pitcher on Chicago’s injury-plagued staff either a negative value or a rating that begins with a zero.In accounting for 68 innings over 20 appearances (eight starts), Brown has gone 4-2 with a 1.85 ERA, a 0.941 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and one save. Despite that success, it’s still back to the drawing board, in a sense. To have a long, productive career, he understands that he needs to make adjustments.“When I came back from Tommy John, I changed the way I threw, and I got better because of it,” Brown said. “I didn’t have elbow pain anymore. Yes, my elbow was healed, but I also threw differently. If I just did the same thing, and I blew out again, and had two Tommy Johns throwing with the same mechanics I had since I was 16, that would be insane, right?“I’m looking at this now like there’s an actual issue here, and I got to take care of it.”Jun 28, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms