PITTSBURGH – The early innings of Braxton Ashcraft’s Sunday afternoon start against the Reds checked all the boxes necessary for a possible special outing on the mound.
The right-hander was working quickly and in rhythm, getting ahead in counts and commanding his entire arsenal of pitches in Pittsburgh’s 1-0 victory at PNC Park. He went on to deal a career-high 7 2/3 innings, striking out six and allowing just four hits with a pair of walks. It came just five days after Ashcraft was unable to make it through the fifth inning in his previous outing against St. Louis.
“That’s always the goal is [to] one-up your last outing,” Ashcraft said. “To go out and cover 7 2/3, it helps a lot. There's a lot of stuff that plays into that, but at the end of the day, I put together a plan coming out of the last outing, executed it well, went into this outing feeling good and was able to capitalize on that.”
Ashcraft worked around a one-out walk in the first inning. He then needed just eight pitches to pitch a 1-2-3 second inning and nine to do the same in the third. He surrendered his first hit of the game in the fourth inning, a hard-hit, leadoff single by JJ Bleday, yet it ended up being his most efficient frame. He got Elly De La Cruz to flyout and Sal Stewart to ground into an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play to end the inning after just four pitches.
After striking out the side in the fifth inning, it was clear his outing was far from over. In the sixth, he worked around a two-out double by TJ Friedl by getting Bleday to line out to second. He then opened his seventh inning with a four-pitch walk to De La Cruz – his first sign of possible fatigue – but got Stewart to ground into a double play on the very next pitch and escaped the threat after just seven pitches.
He had only thrown 71 pitches through seven innings, with more in the tank.
Ashcraft allowed a leadoff single to Spencer Steer and a one-out double to Jose Trevino to put runners at first and third in the eighth. After a pair of critical ABS challenges by catcher Joey Bart turned a would-be 2-0 count into a 0-2 one, Nick Gonzales fielded a weak, infield chopper and cut down Steer at the plate for the second out.
Pirates manager Don Kelly made the decision to move Ashcraft from the game moments later and bring in Gregory Soto, who escaped trouble with a strikeout of Friedl.
Coincidentally, the longest outing of Ashcraft’s young career came just hours after the conclusion of the Pittsburgh Marathon. And it was badly needed, too, as he was locked into a pitcher’s duel for seven innings with Cincinnati right-hander Chase Burns.
Ashcraft threw 82 pitches (56 strikes) and lowered his season-ERA to 3.02. He’s now pitched at least six innings and allowed two or fewer runs in four of his seven starts.
“Oh, man. He was unbelievable,” Kelly said. “To have the stuff he had, he was efficient. Extremely tough decision there in the eighth to have to go get him.
“That’s the best game that I’ve seen him pitch by far.”
Ashcraft kept the ball on the ground, including ten groundball outs, while the bulk of his seven hard-hit balls against him were right at fielders. Bart said the more Ashcraft pitched in the zone early in the game to keep his pitch count low, the more he was able to put guys away in the later innings.
“I think the gameplan was simple: Just to be on the attack,” Bart said. “That’s what he does best.”
The outing contributed to the Pirates’ first sweep over the Reds in over three years, when they swept them in a four-game series from April 20-23 of 2023. The only Pirates run of the afternoon came after Konnor Griffin whacked a two-out double in the bottom of the eighth inning and scored on an Oneil Cruz single.
“He deserved it,” Griffin said. “I wish we could have gotten it for him a little earlier but he pitched his tail off and we tried to back him up the best we can.”