A clean start: Outsourced first inning proves to be perfect plan for Cubs pitcher Brown
Cubs pitcher Ben Brown's first-inning ERA this season was 9.90, while in the second and third innings, the ERA dropped all the way to 0.90.
Fixing his issues on the mound couldn't possibly be as simple as eliminating the first inning from his workload.
Turns out, it was. At least on Saturday against Cincinnati, skipping the first inning led to Brown's best outing of the season as the Cubs beat the Reds 2-0 at Wrigley Field.
Brown worked 6 innings with 9 strikeouts and just 1 walk. He, opener Drew Pomeranz, and two relievers, Brad Keller and Daniel Palencia, combined to toss a 1-hit shutout.
“To be able to just warm up like a reliever and have fun and have the bullpen guys send me off,” Brown said. “It was a really good executed plan.”
Pomeranz needed just nine pitches to retire the Reds in the first inning, then Brown was locked in the moment he took the mound in the second. In his most recent starts, Brown walked the first two batters and ended up with a 4-run first inning at Cincinnati, and he also surrendered home runs to the first two batters at Miami.
After the game Brown talked about trying to walk a fine line between being fired up for the start of a game, while also trying to stay locked in on his ideal mechanics.
“I threw a really long bullpen the other day,” Brown said. “Just trying to emulate getting up and sitting down, getting back up, trying to lock in on pitch one. I think we just saw that today. I felt like I was really able to slow the game down.
“Obviously, the results were pretty good, and there wasn't a lot of traffic, but I felt like I noticed just more out of me today, just more effort and execution, more focused execution, intent. Not like I wasn't caring in other outings, I think it was just more focused.”
Counsell called this “absolutely” Brown's best start of the season. The Reds’ lone hit of the game was a ground single up the middle by T.J. Friedl with two outs in the sixth inning.
The wind was howling in from left field Saturday, making life miserable for anyone sitting in the upper deck. The breeze blew most right field flyballs into the seats foul. But in the eighth inning, Seiya Suzuki dropped one right on the foul line for an RBI double that scored Ian Happ with the first run of the game.
Reds right fielder Will Benson pulled up just before the ball hit the ground. But considering there's about 6 inches of space between the foul line and the wall, very few outfielders could have made that catch.
“It's a really tough play,” said Happ, who plays left field. “Especially that point of the game, right field's getting the most amount of sun. Plus, the ball's moving toward the foul line. Sometimes that ball to right field's going to end up 30 rows deep in the stands. Sometimes, like that, it's going to stay.”
The Cubs added a second run in the inning when Dansby Swanson beat out a grounder to short with two outs and the bases loaded. It was a fairly routine play, but Elly De La Cruz had a slight mishandle as he scooped it up and was probably a bit too casual.
“I think just running in anger, maybe (after hitting a grounder),” Swanson said. “That's the way you kind of get (frustration) out.”
Happ, who was hitting .184 since returning from the injured list, had a pair of doubles. Pete Crow-Armstrong collected two walks in a game for the first time in MLB, a span of 194 games. Crow-Armstrong also robbed Friedl for the second out of the ninth inning, a sinking line drive that had an expected batting average of .850, according to Statcast.
Brown took some joy in adding a third pitch to his usual arsenal of fastball and knuckle curve. He threw five change-ups Saturday, a pitch he's worked on adding this year.
“Yeah, 6% usage today,” Brown told reporters in the interview room. “You guys can write that down, that's pretty good. Eventually, there's going to be no more, 'I'm not sure about the whole two-pitch (arsenal), if that's going to work in the big leagues.' So you guys are going to have to figure out something new.”