Welcome back to the Reds Beat newsletter! Mark Sheldon has covered baseball for MLB.com since 2001, including the Reds since 2006.

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- While facing hitters during Saturday's workout, Reds starting pitcher Graham Ashcraft wasn't planning on tinkering with his new pitch. But he ended up throwing four changeups anyway, including getting a swing-and-miss strikeout with the fourth one.

“I’ve been flirting around with the changeup,” Ashcraft said. “I just have to see how it profiles out on the mound before I really take it into a game.”

Ashcraft's primary diet of pitches has his cutter, a slider and a sinker. He did not make any mechanical changes in the offseason, but he has worked on improving how he times his delivery.

“If I can throw the two-seamer for strikes and the slider for the strikes, I think everything else will take care of itself,” Ashcraft said. 

The biggest offseason issue Ashcraft addressed was his health -- namely rehabilitating from surgery that repaired fractures to the big and second toes of his right foot in September.

There was significant time spent in a scooter and a walking boot. Ashcraft pitched his final four games of 2023 with the injury before shutting down during his start vs. the Cubs on Sept. 1.

“The first two games, it didn’t really bother me that bad,” he said. “I felt like I stepped on a rock, almost, just like a bruised foot. Then it got to that third game … and it was, ‘Something’s not feeling right. Let’s see what we can do to maybe fix it.’ The last game against the Cubs, I could hardly walk. Velo dropped 8-10 mph. I went to try and get a groundball. I pushed off the mound and I had to hop on my left foot for like four steps.”

Ashcraft, 26, is on a progression program this spring, but he has thrown off the mound three times in camp overall. He is considered on track for Opening Day, but a target date for his first Cactus League game remains murky.

“He is dealing with that a little bit,” pitching coach Derek Johnson said. “He trained all winter in tennis shoes because he had to. Where he works out, the mounds are indoors, so they’re plastic mounds. He’s making the transition to putting his feet in spikes and on earth from what he was doing before.”

Johnson believes Ashcraft's best stuff in camp will come later, as he gets used to the transition to spikes.

“But I think that as soon as he can get into that next piece, the stuff looks pretty good. His two-seam is two-seaming, which is a good thing,” said Johnson, inventing a new verb on the fly. “We know that his four-seam is going to cut. The slider seems fine. He’s not throwing it for a strike quite yet. All the shapes and all the things are there with him.”

Ashcraft concluded a rollercoaster-type year with a 7-9 record and a 4.76 ERA in 26 starts last season. It was a strong ending before the injury. He went 4-3 with a 2.58 ERA over his final 12 starts -- including 10 quality starts.

After Ashcraft opened with a 2.00 ERA over his first six starts, he went 1-6 with a 12.82 ERA in his next 12 games. Then, there was a stint on the injured list from May 7 to June 24 with a left calf contusion before he went back on his last upswing.

“Last year, having that hiccup in the middle of the season with a mix of other stuff, I felt like it was kind of good for me, because it let me figure out the mentality I need to go into each game,” Ashcraft said. “If I keep harping on what I did last year and bring it over and add in new stuff this year, it will help a lot. I feel like instead of that eight-game stretch I had that wasn’t good, maybe it goes down to a two-game or a three-game stretch and shortens up. Or maybe none.”

Another Reds starting pitcher, Hunter Greene, is also featuring a new pitch in camp. Greene added a curveball in the offseason as he seeks a successful third pitch.

"I like it. So far, it’s kind of been a neat pitch already," Johnson said. "It’s a slower pitch. For him, it’s something that he needed. He’s got a lot of fast ones."

In 2023, Greene primarily threw a four-seam fastball (54 percent of all his pitches) and a slider (40 percent) while occasionally using a changeup (five percent). Johnson hopes the curveball can get hitters off the fastball.

"If nothing else, you’re seeing hitters take it in a strange way," Johnson said. "It’s almost like they’re jumping out a little bit, it slows them down. It’s going to make his fastball look a little bit better if he can set it up right. I don’t know how much he’s going to use it. We haven’t talked about the usage part of it yet. But I do like it early on. It seems like it’s a good pitch, he can command it."

• Infielder Matt McLain is dealing with a right oblique injury again. Read more >>

• Spencer Steer talked about preparing for the outfield. Read more >>

• The odds are against the Reds making the playoffs, according to some projections. How can they defy them? Read more >>

Feb. 21, 1986: Future Hall of Fame reliever Rollie Fingers was offered a Spring Training tryout by the Reds. But Fingers refused to sign with Cincinnati and retired because of the club's facial hair ban that would've required him to shave his iconic handlebar mustache.

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