Michael Busch said Monday he still does not feel like he has found the rhythm he was looking for this season, a blunt assessment from a player the Cubs needed to carry more of the power load again. He said the early stretch, when he was trying to find a groove, took longer than he would have hoped.
The timing matters because the Cubs are pushing toward October with Busch still trying to rediscover the form that made him their home-run leader a season ago. He came into Monday with 16 home runs, after leading the club last year with 34, and that gap explains why his season has felt different even as his overall line has steadied.
Busch’s numbers show the split clearly. In his first 51 games, he hit.224 with four home runs and a.361 slugging percentage. Since then, over 78 games, he has batted.256 with 12 home runs and a.416 slugging percentage, along with a.352 on-base percentage that is the highest of his young major league career. That is real production, but it is not the kind of power that forces a pitcher to change a game plan every trip to the plate.
Craig Counsell said Sunday that Busch had an incredible offensive season last year and noted that a young player who performs that way creates big expectations for what comes next. Counsell also said Busch still has a six-week stretch in which he can hit for the power that was expected after last season. Busch, for his part, said he feels like he is not tapping into what he is capable of and that working through the early-season search for a groove and rhythm has helped him, even if he still does not feel he has hit a stride.
That is the friction for the Cubs. They have been baseball’s highest-scoring team without the full version of Busch’s expected power, and that has made the offense deep enough to survive but still short of its best shape. Pete Crow-Armstrong has been carrying a huge share of the attention, and Alex Bregman has been in the middle of a tremendous second half, but Busch remains the hitter whose power ceiling can change the shape of the lineup if it shows up now.
Busch said he is simply trying to work, continue to grind and do what he can to help the team win the rest of the year. That is the clearest read on where this stands: he has not been a drag on the Cubs, but he has not yet been the difference-maker his best version can be. If the power returns in the next six weeks, it could still alter how dangerous the Cubs look when the games matter most in October.
Ben Brown is nearing a separate step back after being knocked out in late June with a stress fracture in a vertebra in his neck, and he could begin a minor league rehab assignment if one more round of live batting practice goes well. Brown posted a 1.70 ERA in eight starts earlier this season and is expected to return in a relief role.
