Pittsburgh Pirates’ All-Star starter Braxton Ashcraft is in a bit of a funk. Over his last four starts, Ashcraft has allowed 18 earned runs in 19.2 innings. While he has still struck out 23 and only walked six, he has also allowed eight home runs. For reference, he allowed just eight home runs over his first 16 games of the season. The defense is definitely to blame for some of his struggles, but there’s no denying it’s been a rough few outings for Ashcraft. However, before you panic, there’s plenty of reason he deserves some slack.
Braxton Ashcraft Deserves Plenty of Slack After All He Has Been Through
Unlucky Early Career Roadbumps
Ashcraft has had a long, winding road to MLB, and that’s likely a factor in his recent performance. This is an unprecedented workload for the right-hander. The Pirates first drafted him out of high school in 2018. He only made five starts before the end of the ‘18 campaign for the GCL Pirates. In 2019, Ashcraft pitched at short-season ball, making just 11 starts all year.
Then COVID came in 2020. While MLB’s season was shortened to just 60 games, the minor league season was completely wiped out. Ashcraft didn’t throw a single competitive pitch all year and wouldn’t until 2021. But this season would also come crashing down around Ashcraft. After just ten starts and 38.1 innings, injuries would ravage the rest of his season, and he would undergo Tommy John surgery in August.
The Start of the Injury Bug
Elbow surgery that late in the 2021 season meant that Ashcraft was not going to pitch at all in 2022 either. So far in Ashcraft’s career, he has pitched just 109.1 innings from the 2019 draft through the end of the 2022 season. He didn’t throw a single competitive pitch in two of his last three seasons and was healthy enough for just ten starts in 2021.
2023 looked like the start of a massive career turnaround for Ashcraft. He was highly effective, pitching to a 2.39 ERA, 29.6% strikeout rate, and 5.2% walk rate. However, it was clear the Pirates were being extremely cautious with his workload. He started 19 games but threw only 52.2 innings. None of his 19 outings lasted more than four innings either.
Ashcraft was still very effective in 2024, with a 2.84 ERA, 25.8% K%, and 4% BB%. This time, he reached a career-high in innings pitched with 73. However, the injury bug was not done with Ashcraft. He dealt with multiple forearm problems throughout the season and made just two starts after July 4th.
Finally Healthy Once Again (Nearly A Decade Later)
2025 was the first time Ashcraft was fully healthy for the entire season. He started the year out at Triple-A, where he made ten starts and threw 48 innings. The Pirates called him up in late May but put him in the bullpen. They still used Ashcraft as a multi-inning arm, tossing 33.1 innings over 17 games, but it wasn’t the same sort of workload he was working with at Triple-A.
The Pirates started feeding Ashcraft more innings in August. Nine of his last 11 outings of the season were starts. While Ashcraft was outstanding during this stretch, the Pirates were still trying to build his workload back up. He pitched 5+ innings just three times across all of his MLB appearances in 2025 (26 games, nine starts).
So that brings us up to 2026. Ashcraft has made 20 and has a total of 116.2 innings pitched. He has already surpassed a career-high in starts, and is just two innings away from matching a career-high in IP. It’s the second time Ashcraft has made at least 15 starts in a season (third if you count him being used as an opener/piggyback starter multiple times in 2025), and the second time he has pitched at least 100 innings in a season.
Braxton Ashcraft has been a professional baseball player for the better part of eight years now, and this is the first time he has been both fully healthy and has pitched primarily as a starting pitcher. He has pitched very well so far, especially considering all he has been through. However, it’s also reasonable to believe that some wear and tear is starting to take effect because he’s never been subjected to this type of workload. Luckily, the Pirates have multiple ways to work around Ashcraft’s potential fatigue.
Main Photo Credits: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
