Pirates Starting Pitcher Not Concerned with Innings Limit

Braxton Ashcraft Stats & NL/MLB Ranking

The issue for Ashcraft is his injury history, which prevented him from making his MLB debut until he was 25 years old in May 2025, almost seven years after the Pirates took him in the second round out of Robinson High School in Waco, Texas.

Ashcraft threw a career-high 118.0 innings pitched between Triple-A Indianapolis and the Pirates and he's only about 44 innings from breaking that this season with about four months left of the season.

He isn't worried about the innings limit currently and is just focused on doing what he's asked to do, but he's also aware that he might pitch less, with the goal of maintaining efficiency, avoiding injury and having the chance to pitch in the postseason, which is what he wants most of all.

“I’m not privy to any of those decisions or precautions," Ashcraft said following his start vs. the Minnesota Twins at PNC Park on May 31. "I try to stay out of all of that stuff. My job is to go out there and cover innings as a starting pitcher. That is my number one priority.

"The one thing I will say is that we have identified in the last month or so, opportunities to be able to mitigate those innings, like 80 pitches. Probably could have gone out for the seventh there, but we understand there is a goal in mind and that’s to play good ball in October.

"Setting ourselves to be able to do that is at the foremost of our minds. Taking opportunities whenever the offense does just put a lot of runs across the board and put us in situations to play the game a little different, take advantage of those.”

Don Kelly Has High Hopes for Ashcraft

The Pirates were careful with Ashcraft last season, starting him in the bullpen before giving him more opportunities for starts later on and eventually making placing him in the rotation this season.

Pirates manager Don Kelly did this with Bubba Chandler last season as well, plus Mike Burrows and Carmen Mlodzinski have had similar types of roles.

This strategy allowed Ashcraft to be fully ready for this season and throw as many innings as he's done, getting deeper into games with still the same efficiency.

It's not easy for Kelly, who would love for Ashcraft to throw as many innings as possible, since he's been so dominant, but they also know that they have to practice caution to keep them ready for the big moments later on.

"Good so far. I mean, some guys are getting out there, been really effective," Kelly said back on May 25. "I think maybe if I'm reading into it with Ashcraft a little bit, he's been really good and gotten deeper into games. I think as we look through the rest of the season, is there something we need to navigate? I don't know.

"We just need to make sure they're in a really good spot. Started out, tried to pace at the beginning a little bit, to get them built up coming out of spring training and now starting to get toward the middle of the season...just finding ways to navigate that in a way that keeps them in a really good spot physically and also allows them to be strong throughout the season."