Third Pitch or None, Ben Brown Lacks the Command Required of a Big-League Starter

Brown was all over the place in the first inning Sunday, giving up three runs to the Padres because of three walks and a hit batter. The visitors struggled to make high-quality contact on that first look at Brown, who can throw in the upper 90s and pairs his riding heater with a devastating breaking ball when he's right. With just a bit of bad luck and all that bad command, though, Brown put his team in an early hole.

The Cubs offense took him off the hook, with a five-run outburst of their own in the bottom half of the frame and another two tallies on a second-inning home run by Kyle Tucker. Brown never truly found his feel, though, and worked the game right back into high-stress territory. He narrowly avoided damage after allowing back-to-back hits to begin the third, but in the fourth, he had no such luck. The chance for it wasn't even there.

Brown got the first two San Diego hitters out in that frame, only to surrender a single and a home run on the third looks Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill had gotten at him during the game. Machado lined a first-pitch fastball. Merrill watched a curveball sail far above the zone, then hit a 1-0 curve that limped into the very heart of the zone out of the park. Brown was lucky to escape the inning without further damage: he threw just as bad a curve to Xander Bogaerts with a 2-1 count and another runner on base, but Bogaerts flied out lazily to Tucker in right.

After four innings and 79 pitches, Craig Counsell was compelled to go to his bullpen, not by Brown's raw pitch count but by the extent to which the Padres had figured him out. That forced the Chicago bullpen to cover 15 outs against the relentless and talented Padres lineup, and the relief corps was not equal to the task. Single runs against Caleb Thielbar in the sixth and Porter Hodge in the eighth tied the game, as the Cubs offense failed to capitalize on the early opportunity they created by getting into the Padres bullpen quickly for a third straight day. A lone run against Ryan Pressly in the ninth won the game for San Diego. The inefficiency of their starter, despite working with a big lead, pushed Counsell's pitching staff to its breaking point.

Against righties, Brown sprayed the fastball, missing the outside edge too often and struggling to find the top edge of the zone. Since hitters could set their sights lower on the heater, the curve was not especially deceptive.

Against lefties, he looked even more uncomfortable, and the misses—especially up and down, and especially with the curve—were even more pronounced. He was in the middle of the zone with the breaking ball far more often than is viable, especially for a pitcher without a deep arsenal of other stuff to keep hitters off that pitch.

That's not to say that there were no causes for optimism on the day. Brown threw two changeups, both to left-handed batters, and while one had the middle of the plate, both clearly fooled the opponent and set up strikeouts on the fastball. He'll need to locate the change with some consistency in order to be effective with it, but since he's had so little success locating the two pitches he trusts, anyway, he might as well give it a more robust chance. He also continues to show good vertical movement on the fastball. His change in arm slot this year makes sense, given the arsenal to which he's committed. The questions are:

1. Can he throw enough strikes from that altered angle to make the stuff play?
2. Is the change making it harder for him to work that changeup in as a tertiary weapon?

Those questions will take considerable time to answer, though, and Brown might not have much of that precious commodity to spare. Javier Assad is up to four innings in extended spring training in Arizona. He could be ready to return from the oblique strain that disrupted his ramp-up early in spring training before the end of April. It was already a mild surprise that Brown won the fifth starting job over Colin Rea, who has pitched well when called upon in relief. Meanwhile, Cade Horton had a very encouraging first start in Iowa. 

Baseball has a name for two-pitch hurlers without good command, be it a dearth of precision in location or a lack of consistent execution and movement: Reliever. Brown's stuff is exciting, but so far, he's shown only intermittent signs of the ability to either stay healthy or perform at the standard demanded of big-league starters. Barring a rapid improvement in multiple facets, Brown is unlikely to stick in the rotation much longer.