Ashcraft allowed two runs over two innings on three hits, a walk, a wild pitch and a hit batter in his spring training debut against the A's on Wednesday, striking out two. A primary focus for Ashcraft was to work on his slider, Mark Sheldon of MLB.com reports.

EDGE Analysis

Ashcraft threw his slider just over 27% of the time last season in his rookie year, with better results than with is cutter or sinker. "It's come a long way. I threw 10 out of 15 [sliders] over the plate for strikes. It's hard to complain," Ashcraft said. "We've still got a little bit to go with it. We're going to see what happens with it."