Pittsburgh Pirates at Cincinnati Reds

Braxton Ashcraft (10-4, 3.96 ERA) took the ball for Pittsburgh looking to snap a 4-game slide, drawing Andrew Abbott (5-6, 3.91 ERA) in a 6:40 PM ET matchup that carried extra weight — the Pirates entered with an ace in Paul Skenes, a real Wild Card pulse and a trade deadline just two days out, needing the rest of the rotation to hold up its end.

The lineup news cut both ways. Pittsburgh lost Ryan O'Hearn to a left quad strain the same day, a significant blow given he'd been the team's No. 2 home run and RBI bat this year and is now facing 6-to-8 weeks out. Cincinnati, meanwhile, was already piecing things together without Spencer Steer, Blake Dunn and a rotation stretched thin by Nick Lodolo and Graham Ashcraft both landing on extended injured-list stints.

This was also a rubber match of sorts — the Reds had taken the previous two meetings from Pittsburgh, including a wild 8-7 comeback win two nights earlier, so there was a real chance for Cincinnati to keep the mojo going on its own turf.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
PIT	0	0	3	0	0	1	0	0	0	4	6	1
CIN	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	3	0

Instead, Ashcraft flipped the script. Pittsburgh broke through for 3 runs in the third off Abbott — Bryan Reynolds and Esmerlyn Valdez each drove one in via walks, with Nick Gonzales chipping in an RBI on a fielder's choice — and Henry Davis tacked on an insurance run with an RBI single in the sixth. Ashcraft was stingy all night, allowing just a Jose Trevino solo homer in the fifth, and Gregory Soto slammed the door by striking out Eugenio Suárez to close it out.

The final margin — Pirates 4, Reds 1, with Pittsburgh out-hitting Cincinnati 6-3 — was as clean a bounce-back as the Bucs could've scripted. With the deadline looming Monday, a start like this from Ashcraft is exactly the kind of signal that keeps front-office types leaning toward buying rather than selling on this roster.

Sources