In a flash, the 2026 season at Four Winds Field for the South Bend Cubs has come and gone. But despite the speed at which this season felt like it blazed by, countless memories were packed into it. On the field and off, this group of Cubs displayed some of the best play, camaraderie, and positive emotion that we’ve seen since the 2022 team took home the Midwest League Championship. Although this year’s playoff run did not lead to a celebration, there were plenty of things to take away from 2026 that will be remembered for a long time.
South Bend brought home the best total record in the Midwest League in 2026 at 77-51. And dating back to the second-half in 2025, South Bend has had three consecutive winning halves. Pair that with 314,301 fans packing Four Winds Field this season, along with it being the ninth time since 2015 that the organization has drawn more than 300,000 fans in a season, and you’ve got one of the most successful regular seasons in South Bend baseball history.
It was the 16th playoff berth in the history of the franchise, and everyone that was a part of the clubhouse knows exactly how difficult it is to get into the Midwest League postseason. We’re going to talk about all the accomplishments we saw in this Midwest League season, from the first pitch, until the final out of the West Division Championship Series.
A Shining First-Half
Even before the season started, the South Bend Cubs opening day roster gave us all a strong impression that the Cubs would put together a stellar season. With the opening day roster featuring top-30 prospect hitters such as new arrivals Kane Kepley, Angel Cepeda, and Owen Ayers, as well as returning 2025 Cub Kade Snell, along with returning pitchers from 2025 such as Brooks Caple, Nazier Mulé, and Grayson Moore, it was easy to tell this roster had talent. It took watching one practice to tell that this team could separate themselves from the rest of the league. And they started that process right away.
Despite losing 10-1 in the season opener on April 7 in Peoria, the Cubs rebounded with a historic franchise win on April 8, demolishing the Chiefs by a final score of 13-1. The win was not only the first in manager Daniel Wasinger’s career, but also the 2500th win in South Bend franchise history going back to 1988. It was an offensive outburst from the Cubs that night, as seven of nine Cubs players had multi-hit games. Every South Bend player reached base. From a pitching standpoint, Cubs pitchers did not walk a batter in the game, and also struck out 12 Chiefs.
The early April stretch for the Cubs was headlined by Ayers, the top Chicago Cubs catching prospect. After starring in the Arizona Fall League in late 2025, Ayers came ready to breakout in 2026. Despite playing just 11 games with the South Bend Cubs, Ayers packed in as much as one possibly could in that short of a High-A stretch. Ayers hit .372 in that time with six home runs and 14 RBI. Behind the plate, Ayers caught six baserunners stealing. The Cubs catching tandem to begin the season was the elite one-two punch of Ayers and Justin Stransky. In his Midwest League debut, Stransky launched his first professional home run and drove in a career-high five RBI on the April 8 night where South Bend earned franchise win number-2500. The end of the Peoria series was the first true impression that the Cubs roster could do something special in 2026, as Ayers launched a 9th inning game winning home run on April 12 to steal a Sunday finale by a final of 5-4.
South Bend went on to win four of six games at home the next week against Beloit, and then went back on the road to Dayton to clash with the Dragons, who eventually won the first-half East Division championship. Dayton ended up losing to Quad Cities in two games in the Midwest League Championship Series. The first game in Dayton was one of the great back-and-forth duels of the season, as it marked the first of two times this season that the Cubs would score six runs in the 9th inning to steal a game. South Bend won that Dayton opener on April 21 by a final of 16-10. After Dayton led the game 5-1 after three innings, South Bend scored twice in the top of the 7th to even things at 5-5. Dayton regained the lead in the next half-inning, before the Cubs plated five runs in the top of the 8th. Dayton then tied it at 10-10 heading to the 9th. That’s when South Bend rattled off a six-run top of the 9th inning to shock the Dragons.
The turning point of the first-half? A daunting 12-game road trip to both Appleton, Wisconsin, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Normally, a 12-game road trip can make or break a team’s chances to make a run in a respective half in the Midwest League. For South Bend, the 12-game trip made the difference in every sense of the imagination of why they clinched their playoff spot in the first-half.
No secret as to why the team was inspired to go have success as well. On May 11, the Cubs took their annual trip to Wrigley Field for a team workout at ‘The Friendly Confines’ where the hitters took batting practice on the field, and the pitchers had the opportunity to throw bullpens inside the ivy. Kepley and Snell went all-out in BP, and were battling each other to see who could hit more home runs into the right field bleachers. For Kepley, his final swing that day was a deep drive that wound up in the basket just adjacent to the right field foul pole.
The first leg of the road trip was out to Appleton. The great Max Thoma filled in that week on South Bend Cubs radio, and Thoma brought us a winner. It was the greatest South Bend offensive series of the season, where in five total games, due to a rain cancellation on that Sunday, South Bend scored 74 runs against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. That included 25 runs scored on May 14, and then 24 more on May 16. South Bend by that time had the top of their lineup featuring the three-headed monster of Kepley, Ty Southisene, and Cameron Sisneros. Both Southisene and Sisneros were eventually traded by the Cubs to the Blue Jays and the Astros, respectively, but each of them made major contributions to South Bend’s first-half playoff push. The road trip then continued into the next week in Grand Rapids. After losing the first game of the series to the West Michigan Whitecaps, South Bend took the next five, and wound up winning nine of 11 games on the trip.
In their return to Four Winds Field during the last week of May, South Bend got some revenge and toppled the Fort Wayne TinCaps, taking five of six games away from the in-state rival. Fort Wayne previously won five of six in Downtown South Bend in April. The final week of May was significant for the Cubs, as it featured the Midwest League debuts of three players that would eventually finish the South Bend playoff clincher: Josiah Hartshorn, Jose Escobar, and Jackson Brockett. More on them in a little bit.
Looking ahead to how the season ended, South Bend would meet their eventual playoff opponent on the road in the first week of June, as they traveled to Davenport to face off with Quad Cities. South Bend took four of five games away, and set the table for a playoff clincher the next week. Meeting the Peoria Chiefs again, the Cubs and Chiefs split the first four games of that series, before Saturday, June 13 arrived. Celebrating Cancer Awareness Night, and with the South Bend Cubs players wearing the names of cancer survivors and those that passed away due to cancer on the back of their jerseys, the ballpark just had a certain aura to it that night. In 2024, South Bend won via a walk-off home run on Cancer Awareness Night thanks to Brian Kalmer. June 13 featured Brockett closing down the game, recording the final 12 outs to finish off his second Midwest League save. As the Cubs celebrated on the field together, it capped off the first South Bend Cubs playoff berth since 2022. A massive celebration ensued, and the ticket was booked to the Midwest League West Division Championship Series.
Second-Half Exhilaration
Despite one of the best halves in South Bend Cubs history being played to begin the season, South Bend was without a walk-off victory at home heading to half number-two. They ended up with three total from July 24 onward.
The first one was the most nail-biting of the trio. July 24, a Friday night packed house against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. In the first week following the All-Star Break, South Bend was trying to get themselves in a spot to start the path to the playoffs red hot. They certainly did so that night. In what was a tie-game after five innings of play at 2-2, the teams exchanged the lead a couple of times each before we went to the late inning. After seven innings of play, Wisconsin was on top 4-3. South Bend led it 5-4 after eight, but Wisconsin tied it at 5-5 down to their final three outs. We went to extras, with both teams scoring one in the 10th. Wisconsin plated what felt like a back-breaking pair of runs in the top of the 11th, but the never-say-die attitude that South Bend sported consistently in the second-half led them to scoring three times in the bottom of the 11th, with the hero being Justin Stransky. The Cubs catcher was beaten and bruised throughout that game, taking big hit after big hit behind the plate. He stayed in there, and wound up as the guy that said enough is enough. 9-8 Cubs in 11 innings.
Monday, August 3 was the Major League Baseball Trade Deadline. South Bend was unfortunately impacted multiple times at the deadline, with players like Ty Southisene and Mason McGwire being traded. It was also the end of the line for Kane Kepley in a South Bend Cubs uniform, who we will talk about more a little later. But after the deadline, while the roster shifted in a significant way, the morale and culture of the team did not.
In each of the final four regular season series played, there were specific highlight moments that resulted in at times wild, ridiculous, and improbable wins for the Cubs. The first was on August 16 in Great Lakes. Despite losing four of the first five games, South Bend did not cower and accept defeat even with the odds stacked against them on that Sunday in Midland. Great Lakes was on the board first, and ultimately led 4-0 after six innings of play. If you were listening that series on South Bend Cubs radio, you knew the high-powered Loons had one of the best batting orders in all of Minor League Baseball. Still, the Cubs wouldn’t go down easy, and scored four runs in the 7th inning that day, all on home runs, to tie the game. Brennan Hudson’s three-run homer got the Cubs on the board, and Geuri Lubo tied it with a solo drive later in the inning. Both of Lubo’s South Bend home runs came on Sunday’s on the road, in April in Dayton, and in August in Great Lakes. He hit his home runs against the two respective playoff teams from the East Division. South Bend didn’t stop there either. Tied at 4-4, the top of the 8th featured an RBI-single by Hudson, which wound up being the game winning hit. It was a career-day in the young career of Hudson, the Chicago Cubs 20th-round pick this year out of the University of Georgia. He drove in four RBI. South Bend added a pair of runs in the 9th to cap off the ‘W’, getting an RBI single from Angel Cepeda, and then scoring again on a Loons error.
That win set the table for the next home series, as the playoff race was on in the East Division. Suddenly, Great Lakes became big South Bend fans, as the Cubs matched up with the only team in the way of the Loons and the postseason, West Michigan. The Whitecaps were a much different team in August compared to when the Cubs saw them in May, as West Michigan’s roster was bolstered with high-level Tigers prospects. Still, South Bend took four of six games away, and Sunday, August 23 resulted in walk-off win number two. Angel Cepeda became an absolute menace down the stretch for the Cubs. He put together his best numbers of the season when it mattered most, to end the season and to start the playoffs. And it was so great to see for Cepeda, who remember, was on South Bend’s opening day roster, but a week-one injury sidelined him for a couple of months. He came back with a vengeance, and was South Bend’s best hitter to end the campaign. He won the game on August 23 thanks to a walk-off base-hit in a competitive Sunday duel to win it 3-2. A gorgeous sunny afternoon in Downtown South Bend that afternoon, ended with exuberance.
Let’s go to a week later, back to Appleton. Matching up against the Timber Rattlers at Fox Cities Stadium it was South Bend’s first trip back to Appleton since they laid 74 runs on the ‘Rattlers back in May. Go ahead and file what’s coming up next into the most absurd win of the 2026 season. Friday, August 28. South Bend was trailing the game 7-4 down to their final out in the top of the 9th inning. There was nobody on base. I was getting ready for the South Bend Cubs postgame show on Sports Radio WSBT, and was getting set to pack it up for the night. Then, Brennan Hudson singled.
The next batter was Geuri Lubo. He singled. The lineup card flipped over for Josiah Hartshorn, and he walked. The bases were suddenly loaded, two outs, 9th inning. Jose Escobar then took a two out walk. A run scored. 7-5 ‘Rattlers. Then, Angel Cepeda walked with the bases loaded. 7-6. Bags still full, the next batter was Kade Snell, who singled in a pair of runs to give South Bend the 8-7 lead. Logan Poteet cracked another base-hit to single home two more, and it was 10-7. That would be the final score, as South Bend pulled off highway robbery to win the game. Just as the playoffs were around the corner, the magic started to settle on South Bend’s side. Only five times in South Bend Cubs history (since 2015) have the Cubs scored six or more runs in the 9th inning to win a game, and it happened twice this season.
There would be no bigger magic than what happened less than a week later. Back at home in the final regular season six-game homestand, South Bend was clashing with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. Despite CR having a struggle-filled season, their roster was also newly bolstered with high-level Minnesota Twins talent, including number-three overall pick in the MLB Draft, Vahn Lackey. South Bend had their hands full, but found a way to win back-to-back games to begin that week. Thursday came, and a massive crowd at Four Winds Field packed the ballpark, with Notre Dame kids back in full-force for Thirsty Thursday. Once again, like the previous week in Appleton, it was a 9th inning comeback that the Cubs needed if they wanted to win the game, as South Bend trailed 5-4.
The inning started in an unusual way, with Matt Halbach reaching on a catcher’s interference play. The South Bend lineup looked a little different that night, with scheduled off days for all of Hartshorn, Cepeda, and Snell. The Cubs certainly played to win the game late, with Hartshorn pinch-hitting representing the winning run. He didn’t finish it, but someone could. Following a Reggie Preciado walk, Snell came up to pinch-hit. On a drive to left, a ball carried over the wall and left the yard, and Snell rocketed a three-run walk-off homer out of the yard to win the game. 7-5 was the final, and it was the final big exclamation point delivered in what was a miraculous set of four weeks with all kinds of crazy finishes. It was the first walk-off homer at Four Winds Field since 2024, and the Cubs celebrated a massive victory. The series win against the Kernels also capped off South Bend having the most home wins in the Midwest League this season, as they finished with 41, the only team in the circuit to have 40 or more victories at home.
Breaking Records
In what was a history making season at Four Winds Field for all kinds of individual records, we saw some of the most high-level play ever in Downtown South Bend.
It all starts with the number-one Chicago Cubs prospect. From the moment Josiah Hartshorn arrived to South Bend on May 26, he was almost immediately putting up numbers. His first South Bend home run came in his second Midwest League game, along with a five RBI day against the Fort Wayne TinCaps. Hartshorn hit eight home runs in his first 18 High-A games, and ended up hitting 18 in the regulars season. 19 if you count his playoff home run in Quad Cities on September 18. Either way, he is the single-season South Bend Cubs home run king. With his 16th homer, which was hit in Appleton in August, he passed both Jordan Nwogu and Yonathan Perlaza for the most home runs in a single-season by a South Bend Cubs player (since 2015). He also did the same with his RBI total. With 85 regular season RBI, he passed Eloy Jimenez for the most RBI by a South Bend Cubs player in a single campaign, also since 2015. At just 19-years-old Hartshorn wowed us every single day with his ability on the field. I had it asked to me multiple times this season, “is he the best player you’ve ever seen?” It’s a hard question to answer. Because Pete Crow-Armstrong is still the best player I’ve ever covered. Hartshorn had PCA like stardom to him, but it’s totally different. Every time I was asked that, I responded in the same way. PCA and Hartshorn are both brilliant talents, but I can’t put Josiah in Pete’s realm, and vice-versa. Two totally different entities. One thing is for sure, just like PCA, that guy is going to be calling Wrigley Field home very soon.
Early in the campaign, until the trade deadline, Kane Kepley found a home in South Bend’s leadoff spot that few players over the years have claimed like Kane did. With 105 runs scored in 93 games, Kepley blew the South Bend Cubs run scoring record absolutely out of the water. Nobody has scored more runs than Kepley in a South Bend Cubs uniform, and it’s not close. Eddy Julio Martinez from the 2016 South Bend Cubs is the only guy that ever had more than 70 before Kepley showed up, and he had 72. Kepley displayed a grasp for every facet of the game. He had power, but didn’t necessarily need to use it. He has incredible speed, as shown with his 50 stolen bases. If he did not get called up to Double-A Knoxville, he would have stormed past Cristian Hernandez’s record set in 2025 for the most stolen bases in a South Bend Cubs uniform. Kepley had 50. And if you look at the Midwest League Leaders among the regular season, Kepley’s 105 runs just narrowly was topped. And remember Kepley’s last game in the league was on August 7. Great Lakes’ Eduardo Quintero had 107. He just got past Kane. That’s how dominant Kepley was. Same case for stolen bases and on-base percentage. Kepley’s 50 steals had him at third place in the league, and his .435 OBP was second. Numbers like what we saw from Kepley just don’t happen. And it’s something that if you watched it, soak it up, because things like that are video game numbers.
Finishing off with South Bend Cubs catcher Justin Stransky. Despite being Owen Ayers’ backup to begin the season, by the end of the Midwest League campaign, Stransky led all of baseball in total baserunners caught stealing with 44. Keep in mind the most in the MLB this season is by Milwaukee’s William Contreras with 24. Last year, Ariel Armas led all of baseball in the same category with 60. As impressive as it was from Ari, the difference between Stransky and Armas is that Stransky did not catch every day like Armas did. It was Ari’s job last year nearly everyday. Where all season, Stransky was splitting time with either Ayers, Logan Poteet, or Brennan Hudson. Because the Double-A regular season goes two weeks longer than the High-A season, Armas has leapfrogged his buddy Stransky now with 46. But nothing that Justin can do. He can say when his season ended in 2026, no catcher in all of baseball had more than him. And that’s pretty amazing, considering he played 76 games. Last note on this, give South Bend manager Daniel Wasinger all of his flowers, as he has overseen the South Bend Cubs catching department in each of the last two years. Results are pretty incredible.
One additional shoutout goes to Alexey Lumpuy, who became the 11th different South Bend Cubs player to have five hits in a game when he put together his big performance on September 4. He joined the likes of Gleyber Torres, Kevin Alcántara, Cole Roederer, and Delvin Zinn who had previously done it. Zinn is the only guy to ever do it twice!
Thank You South Bend
While this season did not result in a championship, it was as fun of a season as we have ever had in Downtown South Bend. The regular season itself was truly a blast to cover this team. The playoffs happened the way they did, but nothing of what happened in the postseason should be subtracted from what this team accomplished in the regular campaign. The Cubs were impacted by truly everything from the spring through fall. Injuries, trades, promotions, you name it. But they kept the same culture all year. Which is not easy to do. That’s a tip of the cap to that clubhouse, and the guys in it, for keeping the ship on the right track all year long.
Look at the results. Best record in the league, South Bend lost just four total six-game series all season, and nobody in the league played better in their home ballpark than the South Bend Cubs. That is a thanks to all of you, who make the environment at Four Winds Field what it is.
We will file everything into the memory bank, and after this winter, we’ll be back and ready to go in the Spring. April 2 can’t come soon enough. The Cubs will begin 2027 on the road with a chance at some retribution right away, opening the season against the newly crowned Midwest League Champion, Quad Cities.
Thank you all!