ST. LOUIS -- Ben Brown was moved into the Cubs' starting rotation as a temporary solution to plug a hole created by a rash of injuries. He’s making a convincing case that he may be more of a permanent fixture.
Brown matched a career-high seven innings, allowing just one run on three hits as the Cubs beat the Cardinals 6-1 on Saturday night at Busch Stadium to win for the third time in their last four games.
Brown filled the strike zone, striking out six, walking just one and 56 of his 82 pitches were strikes.
The right-hander has been nearly unhittable in his five starts, improving to 1-1 with a 1.73 ERA. Two of those starts were scoreless.
Brown was brilliant the first time through the Cardinals' order. He needed just 27 pitches, 22 of which were strikes, to retire the first nine batters he faced.
Brown picked up a strikeout in each of his first three innings, blowing a four-seam fastball by Iván Herrera in the first and using his knuckle curve to get Nolan Gorman looking in the second and a swing and miss by Jimmy Crooks in the third.
Brown finally ran into trouble in the fourth, surrendering a leadoff single to JJ Wetherholt after he worked the first three-ball count of the game for the Cardinals. Alec Burleson drove home Wetherholt with an RBI single to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.
Brown got back into rhythm, retiring the Cardinals in order in the fifth, and then got out of a sixth-inning jam thanks to a 5-3 double play turned by Alex Bregman.
The key to Brown’s success this season as a starter has been the addition of a changeup and sinker to his arsenal to supplement a dominant four-seam fastball and knuckle curve.
Bregman appeared to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead with a solo homer in the second inning that hugged the fair pole in left field, but a crew chief review determined that the ball went foul.
After leaving the bases loaded in the fourth, the Cubs finally broke through in the fifth after Pete Crow-Armstrong led off with a double and scored on a Michael Busch single to tie the game at 1.
The Cubs took advantage of a throwing error that allowed Miguel Amaya to reach, sparking a two-run rally in the sixth. Nico Hoerner scored Amaya with a bases-loaded single and Busch followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Cubs a 3-1 lead.
Crow-Armstrong launched a 444-foot solo homer well into the right-field bleachers to add to the Cubs' lead in the eighth. The ball left his bat at 114.6 mph according to Statcast, the hardest-hit ball of his career, and the hardest-hit homer by a Cub this season, and it was the second longest on the team behind Seiya Suzuki (455 feet on May 4). It was also the longest homer hit at Busch Stadium this season.