Chicago Cubs: MLB insider offers brutal reality check on Brown, Cabrera injuries

The Chicago Cubs, after sweeping the New York Mets in a four-game series, are now seven games over .500 and in second place in the NL Central Division. If the season were to end today, they’d also have the second Wild Card spot. After an extended rough patch, they are now 10-3 over their last thirteen games.

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Considering the crazy run of injury misfortune ripping the pitching staff apart, the team’s success has been absolutely amazing.

The most recent pitching gut punches came this past Wednesday when it was announced that both Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown would be going to the IL and on the shelf for an extended period of time.

Cabrera suffered a left hamstring/adductor strain Tuesday night while covering first base against the Mets at Citi Field. He had to be carted off the field.

Brown, meanwhile, had been battling neck discomfort for awhile before it forced the Cubs to place him on the IL. Manager Craig Counsell later told media that the 26-year-old, who has been an absolute revelation so far this season, would be shut down for at least a month before moving to the next step in recovery.

Cabrera, Brown join cast of bad luck Cubs pitchers

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The two right-handed starters now join Jameson Taillon and Cade Horton (who is lost for the season after Tommy John surgery in April), along with closer Daniel Palencia on the IL.

Chicago’s series of bad breaks has dampened expectations dramatically on a team widely favored at the start of the season to win the NL Central and make a deep playoff run.

In the wake of losing Cabrera and Brown, the Cubs made some emergency roster pickups in hopes of at least partially filling the voids.

One Wednesday-Thursday, they traded prospect Cole Mathis to the Mets for pitcher David Peterson and also picked up castoff pitchers Bryse Wilson and former Cub Drew Pomeranz.

MLB Insider shares harsh reality facing Cubs

MLB insider Jon Heyman recently put the Cubs’ losses into perspective in an interview with 104. 3 The Score and offered a heaping dose of ugly, harsh reality.

Per Heyman:

“It’s really unfortunate. Brown was doing great. Yeah, he’s going to be shut down for a month, but then it’s another month to ramp up—and that’s a best case scenario.

Cabrera, he couldn’t walk off the field. If you have a hamstring injury where you can’t walk, you’ve got a tear. There’s no question about it. And, yeah, I think that’s generous to say that it’s a month and then another month to ramp up. They’d be fortunate to get these two guys back in two months. That’s not good…They really, really are in a world of hurt in terms of their rotation.”

So, in Heyman’s estimation, the earliest the Cubs could be expected to get Cabrera and Brown back is late August. But, really, there’s no guarantee of getting them back this year at all.

Hamstring injuries are notoriously unpredictable and Brown’s neck strain issue is similar to the one he had in 2024, which forced the team to shut him down for the season on June 9.

Picking up Peterson will help fill out the rotation and he might do better as a ground ball pitcher in Chicago than he did with the error-prone Mets infield backing him up. Matthew Boyd, back from his second stint on the IL, has just returned to active duty and looked solid enough in his first outing Thursday night.

Still, the Cubs are going to have to scramble to find more pitching—specifically starting pitching—if the team expects to make a serious run at postseason play.

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