Ben Brown’s Neck Injury Similar to What Ended His ‘24 Season

Ben Brown was recently placed on the IL with what the Cubs initially called a neck strain, immediately conjuring thoughts of the issue that shut him down in 2024. That was a stress reaction related to a benign growth called an osteoma, which is essentially a bone growing off another bone. The osteoma causes radiating pain and restricts the movement of his neck, so think of it like a constant crick from sleeping on it wrong.

“It’s a very similar injury to ’24,” Craig Counsell told 104.3 The Score on Thursday afternoon.

That’s not great news, especially since Brown didn’t pitch after June 8 that season. The hope is that getting a quicker diagnosis and having already experienced something similar will result in a quicker return. The priority right now is getting Brown healthy and comfortable, then the Cubs can worry about when he’ll pitch again.

Update: Brown clarified that this is indeed the same injury, and that the osteoma diagnosis was incorrect. He was out for so long two years ago in part because they could not properly identify the source of his pain. That is common with stress reactions, which don’t typically show up on the most common imaging methods. Like with Yu Darvish, whose elbow stress reaction was a mystery until they opted for a more invasive imaging procedure that involved an injection of contrast dye.

The hope is that Brown will be able to recover more quickly because there’s no mystery this time around, but it’ll take a while to let his neck heal. Then he’ll have to ramp back up while also figuring out how to prevent this from happening again in the future.