Konnor Griffin has been on a tear since the end of his teenage years, and the Pittsburgh Pirates rookie shortstop put the perfect finish on a three-game sweep of the National League Central-leading Cincinnati Reds.
Griffin hit a two-out double off the center-field wall in the eighth inning, then scored the winning run on a head-first slide on a single to center by Oneil Cruz as the Pirates beat the Reds, 1-0, on Sunday afternoon before 16,642 at PNC Park.
Oneil Cruz comes through!
The @Pirates break the scoreless tie in the 8th ????☠️ pic.twitter.com/CKOdqGyjAu
— MLB (@MLB) May 3, 2026
It was a thrilling finish to an outstanding bounce-back start by Braxton Ashcraft, who tossed 7 2/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts while allowing four hits to outduel Reds 23-year-old righty Chase Burns. In his previous start Tuesday against the St. Louis Cardinals, Ashcraft allowed six runs on six hits and three walks in an 11-7 loss.
“He deserved it,” Griffin said of Ashcraft. “I wish we could have got it for him a little bit earlier, but he pitched his tail off and we tried to back him up as best we can. Good game today. Really competitive. I’m glad we came out on top.”
After Cruz led off with a grounder to third, beating Sal Stewart’s throw for a single, Burns retired the next 16 Pirates in recording seven strikeouts over seven innings.
Ashcraft was efficient in throwing 56 of his 82 pitches for strikes, landing his curveball for eight called strikes and six whiffs while averaging 97 mph on 28 four-seam fastballs. He didn’t allow a hit until JJ Bleday singled to right field to start the fourth. But Ashcraft got Elly De La Cruz to fly out to left and Stewart to ground into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning.
With two outs in the sixth, TJ Friedl lined a double to the right-field corner to put the Reds in scoring position for the first time. But second baseman Brandon Lowe made a leaping snag of Bleday’s liner for the final out to strand Friedl at second base.
Joey Bart finally snapped Burns’ streak of retiring consecutive batters at 16 with a single to center in the bottom of the sixth. Cruz followed with a seven-pitch at-bat, blasting a slider 375 feet but Reds right fielder Will Benson made a leaping catch against the Clemente Wall.
Ashcraft walked De La Cruz on four pitches to start the seventh, but Stewart hit a sharp grounder to Lowe for a double play and Nathaniel Lowe followed by grounding out to second.
Burns returned the favor in the bottom of the seventh. After Bryan Reynolds drew a full-count walk, Burns got Ryan O’Hearn to ground into a 3-6-3 double play and got Nick Gonzales on a foul tip with a 100.5 mph four-seam fastball for his seventh strikeout.
Ashcraft encountered trouble in the eighth, when Spencer Steer hit a leadoff single to left and Jose Trevino knocked a one-out double down the third-base line to put a pair of Reds runners in scoring position for the first time.
Bart won back-to-back challenges on home plate umpire Alan Porter’s call on the first two pitches against Matt McLain, twice getting balls overturned to strikes. When McLain hit a grounder to third, Gonzales was playing in and threw home to Bart to get Steer out.
“It was the same pitch,” Bart said. “The hardest one to call for an ABS is a backup curveball up and in. It’s the hardest one to hit. It’s the best pitch in the game. The first one landed there, I thought it was there. I think it was the same thing again. I ripped it again and, luckily in those situations, we can come out with those challenges.”
Pirates manager Don Kelly called the challenges that turned a 2-0 count into an 0-2 “huge” for the Pirates.
“That was a big moment in the game,” Kelly said. “I think that, especially for Joey, to be able to challenge back-to-back pitches, that’s hard to do in the moment, to go right back to back, but it was great. He did a real nice job.”
Kelly had to make a challenging call in the eighth when, despite Ashcraft sitting at 82 pitches, he turned to lefty reliever Gregory Soto to face the top of the order. Kelly said pulling Ashcraft wasn’t easy, especially with the way he was pitching.
“Oh, man, he was unbelievable,” Kelly said. “To have the stuff he had, be as efficient as he was. Honestly, extremely tough decision there in the eighth to have to go get him.”
Soto made it look like the right move when he got the lefty-hitting Friedl to chase a full-count sweeper low and away for a strikeout to escape unscathed.
Marcell Ozuna led off the bottom of the eighth with a broken-bat single to right, then was replaced by pinch runner Billy Cook. Tony Santillan relieved Burns and got Spencer Horwitz to ground into a 4-6-3 double play, but Griffin followed by driving a 406-foot shot at a 108.2 mph exit velocity off the center-field wall for a two-out double.
Griffin said he contemplated stretching it into a triple but decided to trust in his teammates to bring him home.
“I have really good guys behind me,” said Griffin, who is batting .405 (15 for 37) over his past 10 games and went 6 for 12 with two doubles, a triple, three RBIs and three runs scored against the Reds. “I had faith that they were going to get me in. With my speed, being able to score from second, it’s about the same odds as scoring from third. I decided to stay there.”
Jake Mangum pinch-hit for Bart and drew a full-count walk, setting the stage for Cruz to smack a single to center to score Griffin as he beat Friedl’s throw with a head-first slide into home plate for a 1-0 lead. Brandon Lowe drew a four-pitch walk to load the bases, but Reynolds grounded out to second to end the inning.
Soto finished off the Reds, starting with a strikeout of pinch hitter Dane Myers. De La Cruz grounded out to catcher Henry Davis, who tagged him out. Then Stewart hit a fly ball to deep left, where Mangum caught it at the warning track for the final out.
“It feels really good to be able to bring the winning run it and also not just get the win but get the win against a division team,” Cruz said through translator and Pirates coach Stephen Morales. “I knew that anything I hit for a base hit, Konnor had a really good chance to score.”