Cincinnati Reds' manager David Bell gives Graham Ashcraft's calf injury a silver lining

ST. LOUIS — If there’s such a thing as a good time to get smoked in the calf by a drive off the bat of a big-league hitter, it’s probably now for Cincinnati Reds pitcher Graham Ashcraft.

Ashcraft, who has struggled significantly over the past month, gets the next two weeks to regroup after the Reds put him on the 15-day disabled list with the calf bruise suffered in the third inning of Thursday’s start against the Dodgers.

“I do think he can benefit from it,” manager David Bell said of the mental reset the promising young right-hander gets along with the runway to heal the calf. “He’ll respond the right way to it, and he’ll work really hard while he’s on the IL for these two weeks and come back ready to pitch.

“It’s still not ideal,” said Bell, who lauded the improvement he saw in Ashcraft early in the game before Austin Barnes drilled him with a comebacker with nobody out and a runner at first in the third inning.

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Ashcraft, who had allowed a walk and single before the third, made the play on the ball after it caromed off his leg but then hit a batter, followed by an RBI single, line-drive out, walk and two-run single — at which point he exited.

Bell said Ashcraft was sorer than expected Friday morning, which likely would have meant forcing his next start to be delayed regardless.

The move also answers the odd-man-out question for the rotation when Hunter Greene returns Sunday after missing a start because of a sore hip.

The last time Ashcraft had more than a week between starts, he opened the season on a six-start tear, producing a 2.00 ERA in that stretch as the team won four of the starts.

Since then he has a 12.72 ERA with barely four innings per start, and the team is 2-5 in those games.

“We’ll take the approach of kind of working through it and maybe getting a little extra work,” Bell said. “And you never know what can come out of it. Something may click even more for him because of it.”

For a team that opened a nine-game trip Friday 22-19 since a 7-15 start to the season, getting Greene back and getting Ashcraft right could go a long way toward sustaining their upward trajectory in the tepid, decrepit NL Central — especially as they await the return from a monthslong leg injury of the other member of their Big Three young arms, Nick Lodolo.

“I mean, you think about the day where … you have everybody healthy at the same time,” Bell said. “Thankfully, we’ve had guys like (Friday’s starter) Ben Lively step in and really step up. And now with (Saturday’s starter Andrew) Abbott here, the timing of him being ready has helped a lot.

“We’ll just keep working through it. Eventually those three guys will be back in the rotation together  again, which we knew was going to be a big part of our team.”

If Ashcraft’s reset helps him recover some of that early season form, the boost could be significant for a bumped, bruised and pot-holed rotation — especially if Greene picks up where he left off, and Abbott continues anything close to what he did in Monday’s debut.

“That’s the goal, to just continue to play well and not just hang in there but make strides and make up ground and get as far as we can,” Bell said, “and then as we get guys back healthy have that be a real bonus. That’s the way to look at it.

“We’ve been in that situation before. It’s really the only way to approach it.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds pitcher Graham Ashcraft (calf) went on the IL Friday