Graham Ashcraft delivers in Texas despite Cincinnati Reds loss on poignant anniversary

ARLINGTON, Texas — It didn’t hit Graham Ashcraft until the Cincinnati Reds pitcher was on the team bus Friday afternoon in Texas, heading to the ballpark for his fifth start of the season.

“I got to thinking, ‘Wait a second, it’s the 26th,’ “ he said.

He double checked to make sure. And it was exactly what he thought it was.

One year to the day after the most emotional start of his life, he was on the mound again for the Reds against the same Texas Rangers, his grandmother’s favorite team.

This time just a few miles from where she lived. A few miles from where she died two days before that start last year.

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“I got to thinking more, and it was just like, ‘There’s no way it works that way. It’s just crazy,’ “ said Ashcraft after his most efficient, best start of the year.

One in which he pitched into the seventh inning for the first time since last August, allowing just one run on an Evan Carter home run in the second.

One in which Marcus Semien’s winning home run for the Rangers came against Lucas Sims an inning after Ashcraft departed.

The best of both worlds for Theresa Ann Ashcraft, whose only bigger baseball loyalty than the Rangers was her grandson?

“For sure,” said Ashcraft, eyes welling as he talked about her and the cosmic alignment of the date — a large group of family waiting for him at the end of the long hallway outside the visitors clubhouse at Globe Life Field.

“I feel like it helped me more than anything,” Ashcraft said. “There were a lot of emotions on this day last year. I feel like this year it was a little bit easier to know, ‘All right, she’s with me; I’m here in her state for her team, pitching against them.’

“I just knew I had to go out and do my best, and that’s all I could do.”

A year ago, Ashcraft broke down after beating the Rangers at home to finish a Reds sweep of the eventual World Series champs, finally allowed to release the emotions after two days of trying to stay locked in on the job.

“She was such a great lady. She never missed a game,” he said after that win, adding — after going back out with a climbing pitch count to book a scoreless sixth — “that last inning was all her.”

The almost otherworldly coincidence of the anniversary hit him again as he talked Friday night when he mentioned the only reason he was pitching on this day this time was because the rotation got altered when Opening Day starter Frankie Montas went on the injured list Monday.

“It sucks that I had to pitch on this day because Frankie got hurt,” he said. “But it’s also kind of a blessing in disguise because how often do you get to pitch on the same day like that?”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Graham Ashcraft delivers on poignant anniversary in Cincinnati Reds loss