<p>MILWAUKEE – For the second time in a week, a <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/cubs" >Cubs</a> starter is faced with the possibility that he might not make any more starts this season.</p><p>But Ben Brown, the right-hander who went from the Opening Day bullpen to posting the best numbers in an injury-ravaged rotation, is seeing the stress fracture in his neck as a blessing in disguise.</p><p>This is the same injury that cost Brown the back half of his 2024 season, it turns out, a revelation that has given Brown and the Cubs a lot more confidence that they can iron things out more efficiently than two years ago.</p><p>The diagnosis then of a benign growth on a bone in Brown’s neck, an osteoma, was “totally wrong,” Brown said Saturday. The clear discovery of the stress fracture this time around means the team won’t have to take time to figure out what’s bugging Brown, and he’ll be quickly shut down from throwing while his vertebrae heals over the next several weeks – something that didn’t happen as he rehabbed in 2024, which meant the pain persisted.</p><p>What does all this mean for Brown’s timeline? It means that the window for Brown to heal and then ramp back up as a starting pitcher isn’t very big.</p><p>Potentially, Brown could wind up facing the same fate as lefty Justin Steele, who needs enough time to ramp up from his own injury setback that team president Jed Hoyer said it’s “unrealistic” that he’d return as a starter this year.</p><p>“You shut down a starter for a long time, it takes a while [for them to get back to the point where they’re stretched out enough to go deep into games],” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Saturday.