Graham Ashcraft, pitching with a heavy heart, leads Reds to sweep over Rangers
In the bottom of the fifth inning Wednesday, before the Cincinnati Reds earned a 5-3 walk-off win to complete a three-game sweep, Manager David Bell asked Graham Ashcraft if he was OK to pitch another inning.
There was no hesitation in Ashcraft’s response.
“I was like, ‘I’m not coming out. I’m going,’ ” Ashcraft said.
He felt it’s what his grandma would have wanted.
Ashcraft’s grandmother, Theresa Ann Ashcraft, died Monday at 82 years old. A Fort Worth, Texas, native, she was a big Texas Rangers fan until Ashcraft was drafted by the Reds in 2019. She didn’t miss any Reds games, keeping score even when her grandson wasn’t pitching.
The 25-year-old Ashcraft and his grandma shared a close relationship. Ashcraft learned Monday morning his grandma wasn’t doing well and her passing “happened a little bit faster than what we were anticipating.”
Still, he wanted to pitch in her honor. It dawned on him immediately he was facing the Rangers. He changed his walkout song in the first inning to “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins.
“I told him before the game, 'let's go out and do a good job for her,’” Reds catcher Curt Casali said. “Let it come as it may and see what we've got. I don't know. It just felt like one of those days that somebody was looking out for us.”
Ashcraft can be a fiery pitcher, but he wore all his emotions during Wednesday’s start. He pointed to the sky and appeared to hold back tears after he pitched a clean first inning. The Rangers loaded the bases with no outs in the second inning, and Ashcraft pitched out of it, celebrating with a huge fist pump and a “Let’s go!” shout. He chucked the baseball into the crowd in excitement.
He was visibly frustrated walking off the mound when the Rangers erased a two-run deficit in the fifth inning, believing he was squeezed at times with some of the balls and strikes calls.
The Reds retook the lead in the bottom of the fifth inning and that’s when Bell needed to decide if Ashcraft would receive another inning.
“I went to him and thought maybe he was done,” Bell said. “There was absolutely no way he was coming out. It’s so powerful to see him compete like that with his heart.”
Ashcraft required only 10 pitches to complete the sixth inning. The last ball in play was hit directly back to him and he ran to the first-base line to tag out the batter himself.
“That last inning,” said Ashcraft, his voice breaking, “was all her.”
Once Ashcraft was done with his outing, all the emotions from the week poured out of him. The usual high-fives in the dugout turned into hugs. Ashcraft broke into tears as he was surrounded by his teammates and coaches, sharing a long embrace with pitching coach Derek Johnson.
“To see him give it all he has in a situation like that, it’s pretty empowering,” said Nick Senzel, who hit a walk-off homer in the ninth inning, the team’s first home run in eight games.
Said Kevin Newman: “It’s emotional. I was sitting there in the dugout and I felt it. It’s almost hard to separate because there is the rest of the game to play and that moment. You just feel for him.”
Once Ashcraft was alone on the dugout bench, he put a towel over his head and dropped his head into his hands.
“Just to know that I made her happy today,” Ashcraft said at the end of his postgame press conference before his voice trailed off, unable to hold back tears.
The box score showed Ashcraft allowed three hits and two runs in six innings. What his teammates and coaches saw Wednesday meant much more than that.
“It was just all heart today,” Bell said. “All heart.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Graham Ashcraft, pitching in grandma's honor, leads Reds to win
