He kept his pitch count low to receive the opportunity to pitch into the seventh inning, something he hadn’t done since July 24, 2021 at Double-A Chattanooga. He had only two innings when he threw more than 13 pitches, content with inducing weak contact.
"If I can go out there and just get ground balls all the time instead of punching tickets, I’ll take that all the time," Ashcraft said. "Strikeouts are great and everything, but so is having a low pitch count and going longer in the game."
Ashcraft may not have received the same hype as fellow rookie starting pitchers Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo, but that doesn’t diminish his talent. There are few pitchers on the planet who can throw a 101-mph cutter. His slider generates a ridiculous amount of horizontal movement.
Plus, he’s a machine at inducing ground balls, which helped him escape a jam in the second inning. After surrendering back-to-back singles, he stranded two runners with a pair of ground balls to shortstop Kyle Farmer.
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