CINCINNATI — Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the Reds’ pitching staff.
Graham Ashcraft, one of the hardest-throwing and most effective relievers in the club’s struggling bullpen, was placed on the 60-day injured list with an acute right ulnar collateral ligament sprain before Friday’s game with the Braves. The good news – for now – is that Ashcraft and the club are hopeful that platelet injections in the elbow and forearm can help settle down the inflammation and stiffness and avoid Tommy John surgery.
“I mean it can go one of two ways with it. It can go either you had to go under the knife and have Tommy John surgeries where you’re missing a year and a half, or you can get a PRP injection to where you could potentially be out for two months, maybe two and a half, and come back,” Ashcraft said in confirming the injury Friday. “So missing two, two and a half months is a lot better than missing a year and a half.”
Team orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tim Kremchek told Ashcraft the pain was non-isolated, indicating an authentic ligament sprain rather than simple muscle fatigue. While a second opinion is pending, Ashcraft’s decision to pursue a Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injection on Tuesday over immediate surgery represents an attempt to save his season. However, even under a best-case recovery scenario with the likes of Mason Miller, Ashcraft will not throw a competitive pitch until late August at the earliest. The ripple effect of losing Ashcraft completely alters how Terry Francona must deploy his remaining arms, creating a massive fatigue risk across the board.
The bad news is that a bullpen already struggling to find answers at the back end will now be without closer Emilio Pagan and set-up man Ashcraft for the foreseeable future.
The impact was immediately apparent in an 8-3 loss to the Braves at Great American Ball Park. Taking Ashcraft’s place on the roster was Yunior Marte, a hard-throwing right-hander who hadn’t been in a Major League game since 2024 before being inserted in the sixth inning of a game that the Reds had clawed back to within one run at 4-3. It didn’t go well. Marte allowed a leadoff single, hit a batter, walked one and eventually was charged with four runs on three hits as a winnable game quickly became a lost cause in the matter of minutes. Marte faced six batters and retired one. Caleb Ferguson came on and gave up a two-run single but the damage had already been done.
It’s second-guessing at this point but the Reds could’ve used another inning out of starter Chris Paddack Friday, even though Francona indicated that pitching coach Derek Johnson thought Paddack was at the end of his rope after five innings. The Reds are going to need to push their starters a little harder at this point if they’re going to remain competitive in games and not completely blow out a bullpen that is paper-mache thin at this point.
Friday’s news is a devastating blow to a bullpen that had been the anchor of the team’s strong start to the season. The right-hander was arguably manager Terry Francona’s most reliable high-leverage reliever, pitching to a stellar 3.33 ERA with 32 strikeouts over 27 innings across 26 appearances before his arm locked up following Tuesday’s outing in New York. By bypassing the 15-day IL and shifting Ashcraft straight to the 60-day shelf, the Reds are facing an extended, multi-month absence that completely upends their late-inning hierarchy and tests an already thinning pitching infrastructure.
Losing Ashcraft strips the Reds of an elite late-inning weapon who was actively evolving into a dominant bullpen presence.After spending his early career as a volatile starting pitcher prone to extended structural slumps, Ashcraft’s move to a permanent relief role unlocked elite stuff. His high-velocity cutter and heavy sinker played up significantly in short stints, transforming him into a strikeout threat.
With Pagán already on the 60-day injured list with a hamstring injury, Ashcraft had emerged as Francona’s de facto closing option. He had recently locked down a critical save and was the preferred arm to navigate the opponent’s best hitters in the eighth and ninth innings. In the appearances immediately preceding his injury, Ashcraft was operating at his absolute peak. His final appearance against the Mets featured a perfect, two-strikeout frame with no drop-off in velocity, making the subsequent diagnosis an absolute shock to the active roster.
The loss means Cincinnati loses a pitcher capable of generating elite ground-ball rates in an incredibly hitter-friendly environment at Great American Ball Park.
Tony Santillan becomes defacto closer.
Brock Burke, Sam Moll, Caleb Ferguson, Pierce Johnson, Tejay Antone will rotate higher leverage situations. Think about that. The Reds are hoping that Antone – coming off three Tommy John surgeries – can help them in late-inning situations because their pen is that depleted. Certainly no disrespect to Antone who has worked harder than anyone to earn yet another shot, but the Reds are going to need more than good vibes to fix what ails them right now.
Yunior Marte, Zach Maxwell get middle relief roles.
Quite frankly, baseball executive Nick Krall and Brad Meador are going to have to bring in talent from the outside to supplement what’s on the current roster. They’ve exhausted about every option at the Triple-A level. That’s not to say Connor Phillips couldn’t rediscover his dominant form from late 2025 or Jose Franco couldn’t refine his mechanics to throw more strikes. But those are hopes right now. The Reds need results in the bullpen.
1. The Burden on Tony Santillan: Santillan has been spectacular, tossing 10 scoreless innings to start the year and showing great composure. However, by removing him from the flexible set-up role, Francona can no longer deploy his best remaining arm to escape a dangerous bases-loaded jam in the seventh or eighth inning. Santillan must be preserved strictly for save situations, shortening the games artificially.
2. Expanded Roles for Left-Handed Relievers: High-leverage responsibilities shift heavily onto Brock Burke, Sam Moll, and Caleb Ferguson. Ferguson recently returned from a two-month stay on the IL due to an oblique strain and is still working his way back to maximum effectiveness. Burke and Moll have been reliable, but they are now forced to face tough right-handed hitters late in games rather than being deployed strictly for favorable platoon matchups.
3. Stripping the Safety Net: In an emergency roster response, Krall selected the contract of right-hander Yunior Marte from Triple-A Louisville. While Marte offers big-league experience, he is functionally a middle-relief depth piece. He cannot replicate Ashcraft’s high-leverage performance, meaning the margin for error for starting pitchers like Brady Singer, Chris Paddack, and Nick Lodolo has evaporated. If a starter fails to complete six innings, the middle of the Reds’ bullpen is incredibly vulnerable.
What makes Ashcraft’s injury an absolute gut punch for the front office is the simultaneous development regression of the team’s top relief prospects. In spring training, the Reds felt secure in their pitching depth, believing that if an injury struck the back-end veterans, a tier of high-upside young arms would step forward. That safety net has completely collapsed.
Connor Phillips was an essential arm in must-win environments. This year, his command completely deserted him, resulting in an unacceptably high walk rate that forced a recent option back down to Triple-A Louisville. Zach Maxwell possesses a triple-digit fastball, Maxwell has the physical profile of a future closer. Yet, he has struggled with strike-throwing in his major league stints, preventing Francona from trusting him with a significant late-inning role. Kyle Nicolas and Luis Mey are both young pitchers with elite velocities but have failed to consistently throw strikes, with Nicolas notably walking five batters in a single appearance against the Rays.
The bullpen can no longer rely on internal minor league promotions to mask injuries.Summer Trade Deadline ImplicationsBecause the internal farm system cannot bridge the gap left by Ashcraft, this injury dramatically changes the front office’s strategy ahead of the MLB trade deadline. Throughout May, rumors suggested the Reds would focus resources on acquiring bats to bolster second and third-base production around stars Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart. Now, Nick Krall must pivot to a dual-track strategy. The Reds cannot survive a grueling summer division race in the NL Central with a heavily overworked, thin bullpen. Krall and Meador will be forced to compete on the trade market for veteran relief rentals, potentially sacrificing mid-tier minor league prospects to acquire reliable, strike-throwing arms that can survive high-leverage workloads.
The Reds are experiencing a brutal run of pitching health luck. With Hunter Greene, Brandon Williamson, Emilio Pagán, and now Graham Ashcraft on the 60-day injured list, the team’s endurance is pushed to its absolute limit. If Ashcraft’s upcoming PRP injection successfully heals the ligament, he could return to revitalize the bullpen for a September postseason push. If the conservative therapy fails and a second opinion triggers season-ending Tommy John surgery, Cincinnati’s bullpen map changes not just for the remainder of this season, but for the entire following campaign. For now, the pressure falls squarely onto Tony Santillan and a collection of left-handed relievers to keep the season afloat.
It’s up to Krall and Meador to pick up a bullpen that could badly use a boost.
