Ben Brown’s work on baseball’s mental side leads to brilliant outing in Cubs’ win over Reds

Things had not been going well for right-hander Ben Brown.

He had been hammered in his previous two starts before his outing against the Reds on Saturday, giving up a combined 14 runs, including eight in his most recent start, which came against Cincinnati.

But working with the Cubs’ mental-skills department — as well as manager Craig Counsell’s use of an opener — helped Brown turn in his best performance of the season.

After lefty reliever Drew Pomeranz’s 1-2-3 first inning, Brown threw six scoreless innings of one-hit ball and matched his season high with nine strikeouts to help the Cubs to a 2-0 victory.

“We really got with the mental-skills department and tried to implement some things that would help me out, just calming the heart rate down that first inning,” Brown said. “To have the opener and be able to warm up like a reliever and have fun and have the bullpen guys send me off, it was really good, and it went according to plan.”

The numbers reflected the struggles Brown discussed a day earlier: He has a 9.90 ERA in the first inning.

While Counsell didn’t specifically say that the opener strategy was designed to take the first inning out of the equation for Brown, it seems to have paid off in getting the young pitcher into a groove from the start.

“There’s been a real lapse in execution in the first innings this year for me, and it’s been hard,” Brown said. “It’s almost like I was waiting for something good to happen in the first inning, rather than me being on attack, being the one to execute his pitches.

“That’s not how I should go about my business. That’s taking the control out of my [hands] and letting it all [up] to chance, rather than, ‘Hey, what are some practical things I could do to execute pitches from the get-go?’ And that’s the focus now: ‘How do we do that time in and time out?’

“I have to wake up tomorrow morning and restart and go with the same urgency like I just had two blow-up outings like I did [coming into this game]. So today doesn’t really change that.”

But this outing did contribute to the outlook of Brown as a part of this Cubs rotation.

Counsell seemed pretty definitive Friday, saying the team’s expectation is that Brown will remain part of the starting staff. But the numbers were only getting uglier. Brown came into the game with a 6.39 ERA.

As the Cubs look for ways to keep their rotation afloat while dealing with injuries to Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga and Javier Assad, results like that won’t help and only increase the significance of finding starting-pitching upgrades at the trade deadline.

But Brown showing, at least for a day, that he’s capable of finding fixes, could prove essential to the Cubs’ efforts on the starting-pitching front.

Brown, who lowered his ERA to 5.72, carried the team’s combined no-hit bid into the sixth inning before a ground-ball single — the Reds’ lone hit — ended any brewing drama.

“That would have been asking for too much after those last two outings. ‘A no-hitter, too?’ ’’ Brown joked. “I’m just thankful I got to get out there and throw strike one and get through the first inning and slowly just get my confidence back.”

Will the Cubs continue to use an opener on days when Brown pitches? We’ll see.

Brown made it seem like a return to the first inning might be further down the road, but as long as more chances like this one come, he’ll be happy.

“Whatever works best for the team; I’m just thankful to have opportunities to pitch,” he said. “We are working on things to eventually let me start baseball games again.

“But I’m not in charge of that. I’m in charge of controlling my attitude and my effort, and I’m just grateful to be a big-leaguer today.”