Home Baseball Graham Ashcraft takes the mound for the Reds

Graham Ashcraft takes the mound for the Reds

Baseball — 08/28/2023

After a wild extra-innings win Saturday night, the Cincinnati Reds (68-63) now look to salvage the weekend with a series split between them and the Arizona Diamondbacks (68-62) at Chase Field in Phoenix this afternoon. Graham Ashcraft takes the mound for the Reds. First pitch is at 4:10 EDT.

Lineups

 

Starting Pitchers

Graham Ashcraft

Graham Ashcraft has been, in a word, brilliant, over the last month. In 35 innings (five starts), he has a 2.57 ERA with 26 strikeouts and only seven walks. He’s also been going deep into games, as he’s pitched seven innings and beyond in all five starts. Ashcraft is also coming off a career high 10-strikeout game against the Angels. Unfortunately, while he’s pitched well, the offense (or bullpen, in some cases) hasn’t been able to pick him up. The Reds have lost three of those five starts.

Ashcraft hardly ever used his change up in previous years, but it seems this season, he has cut it out completely. He’s relying a lot more on his slider this year than he did in 2022. He’s also throwing fewer two-seam fastballs this year. Of course, the cutter has always been his go-to pitch. It still is, and he’s throwing it about 50 percent of the time.

Splits

 

Slade Cecconi

Slade Cecconi is a right-handed rookie pitcher who has made four appearances for the Diamondbacks since getting called up on August 2. This afternoon will be his third start at the major league level. In two of the four appearances for Cecconi, Arizona has used an opener. Cecconi has pitched well since being called up, with a 2.93 ERA. He has only pitched 15.1 innings thus far, but he has nine strikeouts and only four walks in that span. Three of the four walks were in a game at Colorado–his worst outing of the four.

Drafted in the supplemental round out of college in 2020, Cecconi has moved up the Diamondbacks’ minor league system quickly. He’s listed as the 9th or 11th best prospect in Arizona’s system, depending on what rankings you’re looking at. In 2022, when in Double-A. he pitched very well, striking out 127 batters in 129.2 innings while only walking 32. He didn’t have as much success at Triple-A this year in the much tougher Pacific League, with a 6.38 ERA. However, he did still strikeout 104 batters in 103 innings.

  • Time: 4:10 pm EDT
  • Place: Chase Field, Phoenix, AZ
  • Weather: 109 degrees, mostly sunny
  • Roof Status: Closed
  • TV: Bally Sports Ohio
  • Radio: 700 WLW

Standings