It may have just been a spring training game, but newly acquired Cincinnati Reds starter Anthony DeSclafani looked in midseason form on Wednesday night against the Texas Rangers. The right hander threw 6.0 shutout innings with nine strikeouts against Texas, though he did run into some trouble in the sixth inning as he walked two batters after allowing a double, but he got out of it on a nice play by Zack Cozart.
The team pushed DeSclafani a bit on the night as he racked up 95 pitches. He used his fastball, slider, change up and curveball in the game with most of his strikeouts coming on the slider, though his curveball left a few batters looking at a called strike three as well.
The former Marlin had shown solid groundball rates while in the minor leagues, but struggled in that regard in limited big league action last season for Miami. Last night there were fourteen balls put in play against him and only four were not on the ground. Getting strikeouts and groundballs is the best of both worlds and Desclafani had those things working for him on the evening.
Cincinnati is placing a whole lot of importance on the 2015 season. They held onto Johnny Cueto this offseason to make one last run at things with a team that’s been to the playoffs three times in the last five seasons. If Anthony DeSclafani can do what he did to Texas in the regular season on any sort of regular basis, the team will likely be in good shape to make another run at the playoffs.