Braxton Ashcraft Reacts To Career-Outing Helping Pirates Sweep Reds originally appeared on SportsNet Pittsburgh. Add SportsNet Pittsburgh as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Pittsburgh Pirates completed a three-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds over the weekend, backed by a stellar outing by Braxton Ashcraft.
Pittsburgh gave the ball to Ashcraft on Sunday and the young right-hander pitched a gem, as he went a career-high 7.2 innings, striking out six and allowing just four hits with a pair of walks, en route to a Pirates 1-0 shutout win over the Reds.
“That’s always the goal is (to) one-up your last outing,” Ashcraft said postgame on Sunday. “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 threw just 82 pitches and lowered his season ERA to 3.02. The right-hander has been a key part of the Pirates' rotation, and manager Don Kelly was pleased with how Ashcraft pitched.
“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.”
With the sweep of the Pirates, Pittsburgh is now 19-16 but remains in last place in the NL Central.
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