With Shota Imanaga out of the Chicago Cubs due to a hamstring injury and Justin Steele gone for the season because of an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery, the team has had to ask pitchers like Ben Brown and Cade Horton to step up and pitch extra innings before the midway point of the season.
Thanks to an incredible offense, the Cubs have done a good job of navigating their injuries, earning a 6.5-game lead on the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the NL Central with a 45-28 record.
The results have been mixed for Brown, who has posted a 5.57 ERA and 4-5 record this season. In 74.1 innings pitched, Brown has given up the most runs on the team with 46 runs, 14 more than Jameson Tallion, who has surrendered the second most runs.
The Chicago Cubs plan to have conversations about resting pitchers
During an appearance on ESPN’s “Kap & J.Hood” on Wednesday, Cubs president Jed Hoyer said the team needed to have “conversations” about how many innings pitchers are being asked to throw amid the numerous injuries to the rotation and bullpen.
“It’s been a kind of all hands on deck when Steele went down early, and then Shota went down, and Javier Assad’s been down all year, and so our starting pitching depth kinda of took a bite early on, and our hope is that both through getting healthy and then, potentially (through) the trade deadline, that we can we can sort of add some depth to that,” Hoyer said.
The Cubs plan to have conversations about Ben Brown
Hoyer named Brown, Horton, and Matthew Boyd as pitchers the Cubs will have conversations about resting more when the team makes a trade.
“But there’s no question that conversations about innings are going to have to happen, just making sure that everyone can get a little bit of rest and think through that,” Hoyer said. “And we can’t do that right now, but certainly we’re aware of Ben Brown and Cade (Horton) and (Matthew) Boyd, they made eight starts last year. So we’re going to have to think through those things at different times during the year.”
“And it is part of the job. It’s a it is a marathon. You can’t run your team on a dead sprint for the first three or four months. If you do that, you’re, at some point, you’re going to run out of gas. So we do have to monitor all those things, both in the bullpen and in the rotation, and frankly, even with position players, trying to make sure that they get days off and that they’re still fresh.”
It’ll be interesting to see if the “conversations” about Brown mean he’ll go back to the bullpen instead of handling starting pitcher duties. He’s struggled early in games as a starter, but has been more effective later in outings.
Chicago ranks ninth in the MLB with a 3.56 ERA, not bad for being without two starting pitchers for much of the season. While the Cubs have been aided by Brown, Horton, and Boyd, they need rest so they can be effective in the postseason.
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