2025 South Bend Cubs Season Recap

The South Bend Cubs closed out another season in a more-than-positive way, defeating the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers on Sunday, September 7 by a final of 5-1 to end another fun-filled campaign at Four Winds Field. It marked the third consecutive season that the Cubs have won their season finale.

And of course, the last game of the season was highlighted by Kenten Egbert’s career-best start of 8.2 innings with just one run allowed. Egbert had a chance to pitch a complete-game shutout, with two outs in the 9th inning and the blanking of the ‘Rattlers still being intact. Sadly, that didn’t happen, but it still marked the second-longest start in South Bend Cubs history (since 2015).

The longest in Cubs history was back in August of 2015 when Erick Leal pitched nine no-hit, shutout innings. That game did not count as a no-hitter, though, as the game finished as a 1-0 Cubs loss in 12 innings. Egbert joined a pretty elusive club with his 9/7 start, however, becoming the sixth South Bend Cub to ever throw eight innings or more in an outing. Tyler Schlaffer did it earlier in the season on May 28 at Quad Cities.

So, a superb way to finish the year without a doubt. Unfortunately, the 2025 campaign did not finish with a playoff berth for the Cubs. And even in that case, there were plenty of spotlight moments to discuss, as one of the most talented flocks of players to ever pass through Four Winds Field packed the Cubs roster.

Mound Dominance

With the South Bend Cubs' Opening Day Roster featuring the likes of top Chicago prospects Jaxon Wiggins and Cristian Hernandez, those two got most of the big coverage early in the campaign. Rightfully so. Wiggins was South Bend’s Opening Day starter, and now as we sit here in September, Wiggins has been promoted to the AAA Iowa Cubs, just one step short of the Big Leagues. Hernandez was with South Bend all season, playing a team-high 115 games, with a team-best 112 hits and 53 RBI.

Now onto the highlights of 2025. Let’s start with our first professional debut that we saw with the Cubs way back in April. As mentioned, with Wiggins being spotlighted as the top arm on the Opening Day roster, there were some early-season surprises. That included the emergence of right-hander Ryan Gallagher.

Selected by the Cubs in the sixth round of the 2024 MLB Draft, Gallagher did not pitch professionally with the Cubs last season after being picked out of UC Santa Barbara. In his first pro game, facing the Peoria Chiefs on April 12 at Four Winds Field, Gallagher admitted that there were some nerves. But he looked excellent in four innings, giving up just one unearned run. Gallagher would go on to wrap up his time in South Bend with 85 strikeouts in 72.2 innings and a 3.72 ERA in 14 starts. After his final start with the Cubs in Wisconsin, Gallagher was promoted to Double-A Knoxville. But at the MLB trade deadline, he was dealt to the Minnesota Twins, along with former South Bend Cubs pitcher Sam Armstrong, in the Willi Castro deal. Gallagher’s time in the Cubs organization was not necessarily for long, but he sure made an impact.

Speaking of pitching, while the early part of the campaign in total was a struggle for the Cubs, one thing that defined the success of the team to begin the year was starting pitching. Gallagher was the ace of the Cubs' rotation in the first half, but you could make an argument that the best-pitched series of the year came out in Quad Cities in the last week of May. That was the same week when Schlaffer had his eight-inning outing.

That week in Quad Cities, nearly every Cubs starter had a highlight performance. It was Brooks Caple’s Midwest League debut, Schlaffer pitched his eight innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts, Evan Aschenbeck spun together six innings with eight K’s, Erian Rodriguez pitched five frames with just one run allowed and zero walks, Gallagher worked 6.1 innings of one-run baseball with eight strikeouts, and Egbert pitched 6.2 innings, giving up three runs, walking none, and striking out three. As impressive a week on the mound as the Cubs had all season.

The Turning Point

As the Cubs transitioned to playing better baseball through the summer, there was certainly a turning point of the season. It came midway through June in the ‘Hoosier State Battle’ at Parkview Field as the Cubs took on the Fort Wayne TinCaps. That was still first-half play, however, South Bend turned the tide of the season in that series, raking five of six games away from the TinCaps.

South Bend was also helped that week by two Minor League rehabbers. We’ll get to a full breakdown of all the rehab stints that the Cubs benefited from a little later. But almost immediately in that Fort Wayne series, Felix Stevens and James Triantos gave a massive hand to the cause.

On Tuesday, June 10, the Cubs were in a back-and-forth battle with the TinCaps. Ultimately, South Bend was trading 9-8 heading to the top of the 9th inning. Down to their last chance of the game, Carter Trice propelled the Cubs back into the lead via a two-run homer over the left field high wall at Parkview Field. Trice, who was eventually promoted to the Knoxville Smokies after the second half began, hit 14 home runs with the Cubs, which stood as the most on the team at year’s end. It was 10-9 Cubs in the 9th, but they weren’t done.

It was more than a big welcome back to South Bend for Stevens, who crushed a dead-center drive on a solo shot for the 11-9 advantage, marking Felix’s 28th career round-tripper with the Cubs.

A few days later, Triantos made his return on a rehab assignment down from Triple-A Iowa. As South Bend won five of six games that week, Triantos played in three of them, coming up with three hits and three RBI. Triantos, who starred as a full-time roster member with South Bend in 2023, also came home with the Cubs to play at Four Winds Field the following week against Lake County. He would end up posting four consecutive multi-hit games.

Edgar Alvarez also continued his dominance over the TinCaps in that series and in the games against Fort Wayne this season. Last year, as Alvarez debuted with the Cubs after being drafted in the eighth round by Chicago, 15 of his first career 21 hits were against Fort Wayne. In the June Fort Wayne series, he had three straight multi-hit games.

The aforementioned Lake County series was the split between the first and second halves in the Midwest League. June 20 featured one of the three walk-off victories for the Cubs this season, when Drew Bowser walked off the Captains on the first day of the second half.

A Scorching Second Half

In one of the best season rebounds in franchise history, the South Bend Cubs responded and went from having a 23-43 record in the first half to an above .500 mark of 33-32 in half number two. Manager Nick Lovullo and his coaching staff steering the ship deserve a ton of credit. But the group of guys that was around the clubhouse for the second half had one of the best stretches of the entire season from the end of July through the midway point of August.

From July 3 through August 25, South Bend Cubs pitchers posted the second-lowest combined team ERA in all of Minor League Baseball at 2.41. The best in that stretch, the Double-A Birmingham Barons, were at 2.39. In comparison as well, the best MLB team ERA in that time span was 3.13, by the Boston Red Sox.

We’ve talked about how good the starting rotation has been. But time to brag about the bullpen. Though the season, South Bend lost some very talented receivers to promotion, and rightfully so. Guys like Johzan Oquendo, Connor Schultz, Chase Watkins, Evan Taylor, Sam Thoresen, and Nick Dean all deserved a chance at Double-A Knoxville. As well, South Bend faced some poor-timed injuries out of the bullpen, with players like Vince Reilly and Brayden Risedorph hitting the Injured List.

One of the names that had been with the Cubs nearly all season was a returner from 2024, right-hander Grayson Moore. The former Vanderbilt man completely revitalized himself in the second half, following a rare tough outing on July 2 in Peoria where he gave up five runs. From there, Moore was arguably the best reliever in the Midwest League, posting the longest consecutive scoreless innings streak of any South Bend Cub in 2025 at 14.2 straight shutout frames. Moore went from July 3 through the first week of September without giving up an earned run.

Complementing the bullpen right along with Moore were the players the Cubs received from Low-A Myrtle Beach to fill the shoes of all those guys who were promoted to Knoxville.

Starting with Jackson Kirkpatrick, who was an absolute DAWG in the late innings. When the big 6-7 right-hander was on the bump, you felt that the game was over for the opposing team. After working a 0.84 ERA in 15 games with the Pelicans at Low-A, Kirkpatrick came to the Cubs, pitching in 18 total games and giving up just three runs. That’s along with 29 strikeouts in 22.2 innings pitched.

There was also no bigger moment than when Kirkpatrick had, without question, the appearance of his season. Tuesday, August 12 in Beloit. With the Cubs up by a run, there was nobody out in the bottom of the 9th inning. Beloit had the bases loaded. Kirkpatrick closed the door. Picking up a strikeout for the first out, and then getting Wilfredo Lara to ground into a double play to end the game. Absolute nails.

Another name to bring up was the equally dominant work of righty Luis Martinez-Gomez. Known fondly as ‘LMG’ around Four Winds Field, he also continued to post scoreless inning after scoreless inning with South Bend. The 22-year-old drafted out of the Junior College ranks in 2023 has been such a value pick for the Chicago Cubs organization, after giving up just one earned run in 17.1 innings with the South Bend Cubs. There were plenty of OMG moments for LMG, getting South Bend out of crucial jams in the late innings.

Pitching coach George Thanopoulos and assistant pitching coach Jose Zapata guided the Cubs' arms through one of the most dominant stretches ever recorded by a South Bend ball club, and that led to some huge wins along the way.

With this fresh mindset adopted by the entire clubhouse in the back-end of the season, South Bend once again took five of six games in a road series away from the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers from July 8-13. On July 10, it was a very rare rehab vs. rehab starting pitching matchup, with then Milwaukee Brewers left-hander Nestor Cortes pitching for Wisconsin, against 2024 Chicago Cubs Minor League Pitcher of the Year, Brandon Birdsell, down from Triple-A Iowa rehabbing with South Bend.

That Wisconsin series ended heading into the All-Star Break, and it was also the final stand with South Bend for Chicago Cubs number-three prospect Jefferson Rojas. The 20-year-old infielder was promoted to Double-A Knoxville after that series ended, and also after a power surge in that particular week. Rojas went off in Appleton that week, clubbing four home runs in the series to end the South Bend portion of his season with 11.

After the Cubs returned from the All-Star Break, some massive series victories followed. That included taking three of five games in Dayton (the Sunday of that series was cancelled due to rain, and sadly the Cubs were up 5-0 that afternoon, including a Drew Bowser grand slam that ended up not counting because of the cancellation). A key series split was also taken against the Quad Cities River Bandits, followed by another series win against Fort Wayne.

You cannot discuss the 2025 August South Bend Cubs without discussing one man. Ariel Armas. The second-year South Bend catcher found his best stretch of the season from August 5 onward. On August 5, Armas was batting .189 in 67 games. That night against Fort Wayne started a stretch for him that defined his season.

First of all, in that Fort Wayne series, Armas reached base in 12 consecutive plate appearances. Next, Armas was 16/29 at the plate to begin August (.551). The only other Major League or Minor League player that was in the same realm to begin the month was Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani, who was 14/31 to start August. Among qualified hitters at any level of the game, Armas was baseball’s best hitter to begin August. At the peak of the searing stretch, Armas was 25/52 at the dish. The only other South Bend Cub that has ever done something like that in my time with the team was Pedro Ramirez in May of 2024, who had a 25/48 run at the plate. Now with all of that being said, that’s the bat for Armas down the stretch, more on his play behind the plate a little later.

South Bend used the hitting/pitching/fielding dominant combination to have its greatest winning stretch of the season in the weeks following that Fort Wayne series. South Bend won three straight series, over Fort Wayne, first-place Beloit, and first-half champion Cedar Rapids. Complementing Armas at the plate was Edgar Alvarez, who hit better than .300 in August, and also a second-half surge for Brian Kalmer. For the third consecutive pro season, Kalmer finished the season with a double-digit number of home runs. All 10 of Kalmer’s 2025 bombs came from June 24 and later.

Through the wrap-up of the season, South Bend Cubs fans also saw professional debuts from three of the newest prospects to join the Chicago Cubs organization. For fifth-round pick Kade Snell, the MLB Draft came right after his wedding over the summer, and a three-month whirlwind also featured his pro debut on August 5, where he put away his first professional hit on the same night.

Also debuting as a professional with South Bend was right-handed pitcher Connor Spencer, the Cubs' 12th-round selection out of Ole Miss. With a 1-2-3 shutout inning on August 23 versus Cedar Rapids, Spencer struck out the first batter he ever faced, Misael Urbina, to begin the 7th inning that night.

Lastly, playing in his first professional action with South Bend was catcher Logan Poteet, who was picked in the 17th round by Chicago this summer out of UNC Charlotte. Poteet's first professional game came on August 24 at Four Winds Field as South Bend’s designated hitter. His first career hit followed in Peoria on August 29. And then in the final game of the season, September 7, his first pro home run, a three-run drive over the left field wall, which ended up being the game-winning RBI in the season finale.

The Road Back to Wrigley Starts in South Bend

Through the years since South Bend became a Chicago Cubs affiliate in 2015, the Cubs have been graced with many different Chicago Cubs players coming to play at Four Winds Field on rehab assignments. Over the last 10 years, South Bend fans have seen the likes of Dexter Fowler, Jason Hayward, Yu Darvish, Ben Zobrist, Mike Montgomery, and many others play in Downtown South Bend.

This season, eight total rehab assignment players came through the South Bend Cubs clubhouse, both of Major League and Minor League kinds.

First, it was two-time Midwest League Champion Kohl Franklin making his return from 2024 season-ending elbow surgery to pitch in his first game action since the previous year. Then the Cubs received the services of Felix Stevens and James Triantos in the Fort Wayne road series from June, as described earlier. After that, Brandon Birdsell came back in his rehab start vs. Nestor Cortes from Appleton in June.

The first Big Leaguer that South Bend received on rehab this season was seven-year MLB pitcher Yency Almonte. The former Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers righty pitched with Chicago in 2024, but was shut down due to season-ending shoulder surgery. Almonte quickly became a fan favorite, as he joined South Bend for seven total game appearances, but he also traveled with the Cubs on the road, bringing his wife and young son along for the trips. After every game, his little boy would run the bases -- at home with the rest of the kids, and also on the road by himself. Yency was with him every time. Almonte also in rapid fashion became the best setup man in the Midwest League, locking down key outs in crucial games. In seven games, Almonte won two of them, had a 1.04 ERA, and in 8.2 innings struck out nine batters.

At one point, the Cubs had two Major League Cub pitchers on their roster, when Almonte was joined by hard-throwing righty Caleb Kilian. It marked the second straight season that Kilian had rehabbed in South Bend.

Back in November, the Chicago Cubs made a trade with the Cleveland Guardians, acquiring right-hander Eli Morgan from Cleveland. Shortly after Morgan made his Cubs debut over in Japan against the Dodgers, he hit the Injured List. Morgan rehabbed with the South Bend Cubs, making multiple outings in the series against Cedar Rapids in August. Morgan through exactly one perfect inning in each outing, and it was a pretty unique rehab assignment, as Morgan pitched versus the South Bend Cubs as a Lake County Captains player back in 2018 when he was coming up Cleveland’s system.

To conclude the rehabs, in the final road series, and then the final series of the season, big-tall 6-foot-8 right-hander Jack Neely was sent to South Bend, making two appearances in the Peoria series. Neely also threw once at Four Winds Field, and was the ‘starter’ for the completion of a suspended game in that last series that picked up in the 5th inning.

Setting Some Records

Three total South Bend Cubs records were broken in 2025. And by South Bend Cubs records, that means since 2015, when South Bend became a Chicago affiliate. Those were two individual marks, and one as a team.

First up, back to Ariel Armas. We told you what he did at the plate in 2025, but behind the plate was equally impressive. With 60 total base-runners caught stealing this season, Armas has the most in all of baseball, among Major League or Minor League catchers. Armas picked up his 59th and 60th caught-stealings on the season, in the second-to-last game of the campaign. With that, he passed Washington Nationals prospect Kevin Bazzell for the most in all of baseball. The rest of the catchers in the sport are not even closer, with the next closest having 47. Just by comparison, the most caught-stealings in the Big Leagues is 29, by Boston’s Carlos Narváez. Armas broke the single-season South Bend Cubs record held by Miguel Amaya, who back in 2018 caught 46 base-runners stealing.

Staying with the stolen base theme, the single-season record for most stolen bases by a South Bend Cub was also conquered. Cristian Hernandez, who led the Cubs roster this season with 115 games played, swiped a team record 52 bases. He broke Delvin Zinn’s mark of 42 stolen bases to set the new South Bend Cubs high.

And as a group in full, the South Bend Cubs were as aggressive as nearly any team this season, swiping 244 bases as a team. That’s the most of any South Bend Cubs team (2015 and further). And it was also the third most in the Midwest League, the fifth most in High-A, and the 16th most in all of Minor League Baseball.

Thank you South Bend

Even though this season did not bring along a playoff berth, the second half in particular was the best half of baseball the South Bend Cubs have played since winning the Midwest League Championship in 2022. That’s something to build on for 2026, with some high-profile prospects possibly being on the way. With the Myrtle Beach Pelicans winning the Carolina League South Division second-half title, you would assume many of those players are going to get a chance in South Bend next season.

Add to the fact that we saw three 2025 draftees with the Cubs this year in Snell, Spencer, and Poteet, we are still awaiting the pro debut for 2025 first-rounder Ethan Conrad, and also second-rounder Kane Kepley is a part of this playoff run with Myrtle Beach. If you are able to pair some of those names next season with the possible returners the Cubs could have, you might be talking about a pretty talented Opening Day roster for next April.

No matter what, we’ll look forward to what’s to come next season. Friday, April 3, 2026, can’t come soon enough at Four Winds Field. We’ll look forward to seeing you then!