Brewers’ lefty Ashby masters a curveball
He stars after COVID-19 bout
How best to turn heads in your first major-league camp?
If you're a pitcher, striking out a bunch of guys doesn't hurt.
Aaron Ashby is finding that out after fanning all six batters he's faced in his two innings of work so far for the Milwaukee Brewers.
The bespectacled left-hander, ranked as the fourth-best prospect in the organization, has gotten all kinds of love since his last outing Thursday against the San Diego Padres.
Fans have been buzzing, Twitter has been ablaze with video mashups of his nasty stuff, media has been clamoring to speak to him.
Oh yeah, and he's also caught the attention of manager Craig Counsell. That's usually a pretty good sign. “It's been two innings that he's been very impressive,” Counsell noted. “He clearly keeps going in the right direction. It's an exciting player for us to keep watching.”
It could be a lot to digest for some. But the affable Ashby, a Kansas
City native who turns 23 on May 24, is handling it all like a 10-year pro.
He’s quick to defer any credit for his hot start to those who have helped get him to this point while making sure to single out minor-league pitching coordinator Cam Castro and Class AAA Nashville pitching coach Jim Henderson.
“It’s been fun,” he said Friday. “But it’s kind of just to get to know everybody, learn a routine, get back in the swing of things. Luckily, I’ve been blessed with some good outings, surrounded by some good people.
“My catchers right now are really good. I’m really trusting them and everything, and everyone who’s been helping me on the side and everything kind of behind the scenes.”
Ashby, a fourth-round pick of the Brewers out of Crowder Junior College in Neosho, Missouri, in 2018, climbed three levels in two minor-league seasons with a 13-start stint at advanced Class A Carolina his jumping-off point for what should have been a big 2020. Then, COVID-19 hit.
And if it weren’t bad enough that the pandemic cost him a valuable year of development with minor-league baseball shut down, Ashby caught the virus himself over the summer.
“I got tested on July 6 while I was in California with my buddy training out there,” he said. “I didn’t test negative until July 29, and I went home the next day because I wasn’t supposed to be out in California all of July.
“I was supposed to go home (earlier), but obviously couldn’t go home to my parents having COVID and couldn’t get on a plane and put everyone else at risk.”
Fortunately for Ashby, he navigated his illness relatively well and even was able to continue working out in the midst of it, with shortness of breath his biggest hurdle.
“I didn’t have super-severe symptoms,” he said. “Lost my sense of taste and smell, which was kind of weird. I know a lot of people have reported having those same symptoms. Sometimes it’s still a little weird. Certain things still kind of taste the same at times. Certain smells smell the same that shouldn’t smell the same.
“I consider myself pretty fortunate to not have the more severe symptoms.”
Ashby was well enough to be placed into the Brewers’ 60-player pool and sent to Appleton late last July, so the season didn’t turn out to be a total wash.
“It was difficult not playing baseball,” he said of missing out on a 2020 season. “To have that taken away was tough. But you’ve got to make the most of every single situation.
“I trained just like it would be a normal season, and just expecting everything to be two weeks away. Like I’m going to pitch in a game, two weeks away, two weeks away. And then it just kept going until I got to the alternate site.
“I’m happy that I was able to get invited to the alternate site. It was a blessing.”
Ashby received the invite to his first major-league camp early last month.
With depth aplenty in the rotation, his appearances in the Cactus League have been one-inning relief stints with an eye on eventually returning him to the minors – he’s most likely ticketed for Class AA Biloxi – to stretch out as a starter.
What’s worked for him to this point has been a mixture of very good stuff (his fastball has been touching 95-96 mph) and an ability to vary his delivery with leg kicks and pauses. Milwaukee’s 2019 first-round pick, lefty Ethan Small, pitches in much the same manner.
“That’s been a pretty consistent part of who he is. He’s been doing that for a quite a while,” Counsell said of Ashby. “That’s not what we should be looking at. It catches your eye, but the stuff is what catches my eye. It’s good velocity, sinking fastball, kind of unique looking slider.
“The swings are from the stuff – the deceptions to the deliveries for me are just a little add-on that are going to get you some outs or some strikes or some weird swings every once in a while.”
Ashby said his style has been gleaned from several different sources.
“The unusual delivery might be due in part to just how I throw. I’m kind of really over the top,” he said. “But as far as the leg kicks and the changing timing and stuff like that, I kind of learned that in college when our coach was preaching to our hitters, ‘Hey, timing is everything, you need to be on time with every pitcher.’
“It was like, ‘Wow, how do I get these guys out at times.’ That’s where the leg kick came in with (Marcus) Stroman, (Johnny) Cueto, guys like that, that I saw on Pitching Ninja actually,
“Just some people like that I kind of learned from.”
In 37 career minor-league appearances (1832⁄3 innings, 33 starts), Ashby has logged a 3.53 earned-run average and struck out 9.8 batters per nine innings.
No question, the Brewers would like him to get more seasoning in the minors.
But they also haven’t been afraid to bring youngsters up – see Drew Rasmussen last season – for bullpen depth, and Counsell confirmed recently that both Ashby and Small are on their radar screen.
That’s good news for an organization that has lacked impact left-handers (and has yet another in 2019 second-round pick Antoine Kelly) as well as for Ashby, who might not be too far away from following his uncle, Andy, to the majors.
“Yeah, of course, every guy wants to debut and play in the show and everything, but I don’t think it’s my main focus or everything’s riding on that,” Ashby said. “Right now, I’m just trying to learn from these guys, get back in my routine of things and whatever happens, happens.”