Enyel De Los Santos opened the season looking like a steady hand in the Astros bullpen. Lately, though, the right-hander has been trending the wrong way fast, and Houston needs a turnaround if it wants to keep leaning on him down the stretch.
De Los Santos has traveled a long road to get here. He broke into the majors with the Phillies in 2018 at age 22, and the Astros are the eighth franchise he has appeared for in a big league game. Houston brought him in after the Braves released him last season, and he gave the club a 4.02 ERA in 22 relief appearances a year ago.
This season, the numbers looked solid on June 10, when he carried a 3.07 ERA. Since then, the slide has been real: a 5.87 ERA and more than one negative win probability added, at -1.257.
His latest outing showed how quickly things have unraveled. De Los Santos entered with a three-run cushion and no one on base, then gave up a single to Henry Bolte before striking out Carlos Cortes.
After that, the inning got away from him. A hit-by-pitch was followed by a double and a single, and three runs crossed before Kai-Wei Teng came on.
Teng kept the inherited runner from scoring, but the damage was done.
The line from that appearance was ugly: 0.1 innings and three earned runs. At the same time, there was at least a hint of misfortune in how it played out.
All three balls the Athletics put in play became hits, even though each one came off the bat between 99 mph and 82 mph and carried an expected batting average below .500. Houston had been ahead by six when the inning started, and the game was tied by the time the dust settled.
The underlying metrics suggest De Los Santos may not be quite as broken as the ERA says. He owns a 3.50 FIP, a 3.92 expected FIP, a 0.8 WAR on Fangraphs, a Baseball Reference WAR at zero, and a 3.38 expected ERA.
Still, the role is shifting. De Los Santos has gone from a dependable seventh-inning option to a pitcher fighting to hold onto his place.
For now, he’s being used in medium-leverage spots, but that can change quickly if the rough outings keep coming. And with Astros starters covering fewer and fewer innings, Houston needs someone like De Los Santos to stabilize the middle and help power the division chase.
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