Ben Brown's 4 No-Hit Innings Fuel Cubs' 10th Straight Win — and a Betting Line You Should Already Be Eyeing

The Cubs are on a run that hasn't been seen at Wrigley — or anywhere the North Siders have played — since the Roosevelt administration. As MLB.com reported, Chicago's 7-1 dismantling of Texas on Friday night pushed the win streak to 10, the second such streak of at least 10 games this season. Twenty wins in 23 games. Two separate 10-game tears before the team has even reached its 40th decision. The last Cubs squad to pull that off was the 1935 club, and only seven franchises in all of MLB history have done it this early in a season.

What makes this particularly interesting from a market standpoint is the engine behind the streak: a bullpen-by-committee approach born out of necessity. Matthew Boyd went down for six weeks after a freak knee injury, and the Cubs responded by sliding reliever Ben Brown into a spot-start role. Brown didn't just fill a gap — he dominated, working four no-hit innings Friday, allowing only a second-inning walk to Joc Pederson while generating six groundball outs and punching three. His 46-pitch efficiency through four innings gave Chicago's deep lineup the runway to operate, and his ERA now sits at a tidy 1.82 across 12 appearances. This is a pitcher whose workload the Cubs are deliberately managing upward, which means his outings will be capped — but sharp and effective while they last.

The offense did the rest. Ian Happ extended his on-base streak to 29 games — a career best — with an RBI single in the first against Kumar Rocker. Seiya Suzuki made it a rout with a two-run homer in the fourth, his seventh of the year. The Cubs then broke it open late, scoring four off Cal Quantrill in the sixth and seventh, capped by a three-run double from Michael Busch. The lineup is producing up and down the card, and the pitching staff — despite pitching coach Tommy Hottovy's usage chart being, in his own words, 'lit up red' — keeps finding answers.

For bettors, Brown's emerging role creates a specific and exploitable dynamic. When he starts, expect pitch-count ceilings in the 50-65 range as the Cubs rebuild his starter stamina. That compresses his strikeout volume per outing, making over bets on his K props risky at conventional prices — but it also means Chicago will lean on a bridge bullpen that has been quietly elite. Watch the Cubs' team total: at 5 or above, they're worth backing in games Brown starts, given the lineup's consistency and how efficiently the Cubs have been scoring runs during this streak. The first-5-innings line is particularly compelling when Brown is on the mound — his groundball-heavy profile and pitch efficiency suppress early run scoring from opposing offenses.

The Rangers, meanwhile, are a team in freefall context here — Rocker gave up the Suzuki homer and couldn't hold Chicago's lineup at bay. If you're playing Texas team totals over the next week, the fade is warranted. Chicago's pitching depth, even taxed, is keeping opponents well under four runs per game during this streak. The Cubs' run-line — typically -1.5 — has cashed at a stunning rate during this 10-game run, and there's no structural reason to expect a cliff until Boyd returns and the schedule finally exhales.